


lost and insecure, you found me

by chasingforeverandaday



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blind Character, Braavos, Consensual Sex, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gendrya Big Bang, Hurt/Comfort, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Content, Underage Sex, brief descriptions of violence, discussions of trauma, in as much as I was very vague about time passing and Arya probably isn't 18, working through trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:22:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25245346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingforeverandaday/pseuds/chasingforeverandaday
Summary: A continent away from the place they were forced apart, two lost souls find each other and learn to live a life worth living.Unable to bear living in the land that saw his best friend's murder, Gendry flees to the Free City of Braavos, nightmares of a red witch and her touch still haunt him, as do the memories of a gray-eyed girl left behind. Little does he know that Arya was only a few alleys away, blind and confused as she tried to forget the passion that once howled through her icy veins. Happenstance and divine intervention throw the last Baratheon bastard and his Stark not quite a lady back together after years apart, both so very different yet so very much the same.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 106
Kudos: 261





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flemoncake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flemoncake/gifts).



> Here we go: my contribution to the Gendrya BigBang. To the Jen who was concerned that she wouldn't make the 9,000 word minimum: HA FUCKING HA. Yeah, that was absolutely not a problem, considering I'm at almost 20,000 words as I'm typing this and it's still not fucking done yet. And my deadline is in two days, soooooooooo.
> 
> Anyways, this has been both an amazing and incredibly stressful experience. I love the story this turned into and I'm so excited to share this with everyone. And I would like to thank @go-catch-a-chickn on Tumblr (flemoncake here) for being a very patient artist and dealing with my procrastination. 
> 
> In regards to the actual story, this is my exploration of Gendry and Arya's respective traumas in a world where she didn't go fully Faceless, Gendry stayed a little more true to his book roots, and also didn't brush off his experience with Melisandre. I went more into the effects their pasts have on their presents, in their behavior and thoughts and how they evolve both on their own and together. Which is to say this got rather introspective and dark at points, but there is a happy light at the end of the tunnel!
> 
> As per usual, the title comes from song lyrics, name "You Found Me" by The Fray. All comments, questions, or yelling at me are always welcome below.

Consciousness is sudden and painful, his lungs burning for breath and limbs tangled in the useless sheets, trapping him deeper in his mind. Sheer terror grips him, strangling his senses as he tries to calm down in the heavy humidity of the city. Head in his hands, Gendry sits up and tries to clear his mind of the images and screams still caught in his mind.

Most nights he has nightmares, still sure he’s in that boiling room and drowning in the featherbed, unable to move his hands or legs. He wakes frozen, lost in his head until he can calm his breathing. Other nights, he dreams of the stars and the grey eyed girl who told him stories in the stillness of the woods, when all they had to depend on was each other and Hot Pie, though their baker friend never makes his way into these dreams. Instead, he can dream of a world where he never told her no, never let go of her hand and instead pulled her closer. Let himself breathe in and believe that maybe he could have had a place in her life. 

Once in a while, he’ll have a good dream, one where she’s laughing freely with her head thrown back, long chestnut curls streaming down her back. They’re both older in those dreams, and maybe he can pretend for a night that he’s not a mere bastard boy and she’s not the sister of a king. They can just be Arya and Gendry. And maybe he can kiss her, the way he’d thought he might years in the future, when she’d grow up and realized that he’d never looked at her like he would a sister.

This was a bad night, watching Arya writhe in pain over and over, stuck in his place as the rat’s bucket is strapped to her stomach, as she is dragged away by Baratheon guards, as the Red Woman stands over her with the menacing gleam in her dead eyes. And he saw things he never actually witnessed, but heard tales of in a tavern years ago, exhausted to his bones and shattering inside with every word that left the mouth of the Lannister soldier beside him.

Arya, sitting at a feast, happiness personified as she looks to her mother and brother. Arya, gushing blood as she lays on the floor, full of stab wounds from the men who betrayed the Starks. Arya, struggling and crying as she is held down on a bed, men with evil grins on their faces licking their lips, going for their belts, going to…

He shakes his head angrily, tears escaping his eyes as he desperately erases that vision from his brain. He prays she never had to experience that helplessness, that feeling of hitting rock bottom when you have no control over your own fate. 

Giving up on the idea of finding his way back to sleep, Gendry stands and stretches, releasing the kinks that forever plague his back from the too small cot in his tiny little home behind his forge. Glancing out his only window, he can see a glimpse of dawn in the blurry shadows beginning to trace their way across the alleys. He dresses reluctantly, already tired of the heat that reminds him so very much of his birthplace.

He goes straight to his anvil, as he always does on these mornings, translates that hatred and despair into work, turning his inner turmoil into metal creations that will put food on his table. Stoking the fires, he finds all the usable scrap in his possession and sets it to heat, knowing he cannot begin any of his commissions until after he has calmed down and chased away his demons for the day. Here in Braavos, he can manage that much, can pretend his life has some semblance of normality. But he will forever be lost in his past, no chance to move on.

Once he’d escaped Dragonstone and found himself back in the city of his birth, his life had seemingly fallen back onto the track it had been on since he’d been apprenticed to Tobho Mott as a boy. He took over an abandoned shop, shaved his head, and adopted the name Clovis as his own. He became someone else to survive. 

But deep down, he knew he could never be anyone other than Gendry the bastard blacksmith, biding his time until he found some higher calling, some way to make some kind of reparations for leaving her. Leaving Arya, and never getting the chance to say goodbye. For however terrifying the dreams of paralyzed limbs and flickering flames on his bare skin are, he cannot escape those big gray eyes and the way they’d accused him of not caring for her. But she was gone, and he was not, and life was not fair.

No more than a year passes before he has to leave King’s Landing, unable to bear the memories and dreams this city will forever evoke. Gendry sells his shop and most of his goods, keeping only what he can carry to pay his way wherever he may land. He eventually decides on Braavos, a distant conversation with Arya about the canals and freedom of the city weighing in his mind. His last view of his birthplace is brief, the only emotion he feels being relief at leaving for the last time.

It wasn’t his home anymore, it hadn't been much more than a steady place to lay his head at night. His home was lost somewhere in the woods of the Riverlands, where the idea of home had become synonymous with a noble girl and her warm grey eyes and a sharp tongue that couldn’t take no for an answer. And all he has heard tells him that she is gone, lost to the wind, if not to the blades of the Freys. So he cannot stay in this land that has killed her, the only family he’s ever known. He cannot stand to be here any longer.

After months in this foreign land, Gendry had made a semblance of a life for himself, a tiny shop and an anvil to call his own, but more importantly, a living space he shares with no one. 

After the Red Woman, after all of _that_ , Gendry has found that he no longer can suffer the presence of another person for long before his skin begins to crawl and his hands begin to shake. And it is worse when it is a woman. No matter how much larger than a woman he is, or how much they flutter their lashes or bite their lips, all he can see is red and blood and fire. He gains a reputation as surly but trustworthy, a man who would never go after another’s wife. It is a reputation that has earned him solitude, and he revels in the quiet that defines his every day. 

Finally drawing himself out of his memories, he casts the half beaten sword aside, promising himself to fix it later. Wiping his hands and face of soot, he found a somewhat clean tunic and snarfed down a hard roll before opening the doors of his shop. He wasn’t exactly on a bustling street, but he stayed busy enough to keep his door open. Perhaps he could pick up more business, but then he would have to find an apprentice or someone to watch the shop as he worked, and well, he simply wasn’t ready for that. 

Hours pass as he polishes swords and tries his best to keep his temper with Eros, the captain of some merchant’s guard who always wanted Gendry to lower his prices in exchange for putting in a good word with his friends. The man was terrible at taking no for an answer, but Gendry had yet to acquiesce. 

In any case, he was better equipped to deal with a sour faced soldier than the flirting maids who flittered into his store every few days. They were just silly girls, always flicking hair over their shoulders and tracing fingers against their chests, trying to draw his eyes there. But he had no interest in them, or anything they were offering. Every time he ignored them, or turned bright red in embarrassment, or sputtered when they came too close, they would only try harder to win him over, invading his space until he nearly growled at them to leave him be. 

And sure, they would leave, licking their proverbial wounds with pouting lips as they left his shop. But they would most likely be back, and he would grow anxious from their mere proximity, and the cycle would continue on and on until they gave up, as most of the girls did when the humble blacksmith wouldn’t submit to their charms after weeks of incessant flirting. He’d not yet fully scared the most brazen ones away, the ones who liked to stare at his arms and reach for him as they chattered on about nothing, all heated eyes and lowered bodices. 

There was one he could maybe almost like, a tiny nymphlike maid from a nearby tavern with big eyes that looked nearly gray in the shadows, the only girl who liked to tease him about his surliness rather than simply try to compliment his muscles. She could remind him of the girl he left behind at times, but then she would make some innocent remark, and something about it would be all wrong in her inflection or her word choice or even the fact that she didn’t have a bloody Northern accent. 

Whatever it was, he would snap and she would leave, and then he was alone once more, free to wallow in a past he could never change. 

But right now, he was stuck with fucking Eros and his inability to barter like a normal person. Rather than let himself be dragged deeper into an argument about the proper price of ironwork, Gendry herded him out of the shop and left for an early lunch. It was outside of the walls of his forge that he could most believe he had managed to escape King’s Landing. The buildings here were different, as were the sounds and smells of the market; oh, some things were the same, yes, but Braavos always felt a bit like he’d fallen into another world when he stepped off that boat a few years ago.

It’s thoughts of how little he actually misses where he grew up when another piece of his past, the most important piece really, quite literally crashes into him, sending him to the ground in surprise. Swearing, he rounds on whatever idiot sent him sprawling, but freezes when he takes in the gaunt, but achingly familiar face. It was her.

It had been at least three or four years since he last saw Arya Stark, but he would know her face anywhere. He just never expected anywhere to be hurtling out of an alley in Braavos, so far from her home when he thought she was long dead and gone. He darts over to where she’d fallen after they collided, all thoughts of lunch fled, bracing himself for the inevitable jab to his shoulder, grin already forming for when she calls him stupid and clumsy and all those other insults he’d eventually realized were her strange form of affection. 

But as he grows closer and closer to her hunched over form, horror breaks over him in a cresting wave. Arya is blind, her sparkling grey eyes now a milky white, unseeing as she stares into the surrounding crowd of bustling Braavosi, skittering backwards to hide against the wall as his footsteps tred nearer.

He crouches down next to her, unsure what exactly to say when he hears her voice for the first time in years, but so broken and feeble he doesn’t believe the words came out of her mouth. “I’m so sorry sir, please, please don’t hurt me. I couldn’t see you, please.”

She’s so different from the proud and fiery girl he knew, begging for his forgiveness, blaming herself for the incident, huddled in rags, he finds himself desperately hoping it isn’t her. But in his heart, which hasn’t stopped beating out of his chest since she appeared, he knows it’s Arya, his headstrong, mouthy little friend. Reaching out slowly, he touches her shoulder, if only just to see if she is really and truly in front of him. She lashes out, startled, but he makes up his mind and grabs her hand, pulling her in close so she cannot flail any further and hugs her to his chest.

She fights for a moment, then seems to melt into him, sagging and somehow becoming even smaller as she sniffs at him, so like a wolf he would laugh under other circumstances. Before he can open his mouth, he hears a tentative, “Gendry?” and relaxes, thinking everything may be all right. Curling himself around her, he finds himself weeping into her messy hair.

All he can say now is “Arya, Arya, Arya,” so shocked he’s found her again after all this time, unable to do anything but keep holding her tightly. Before he can gather himself and ask her to come back with him to his forge, follow him home so he can keep her safe, her head lifts from his chest and whips around, gazing sightlessly down the alley they’re sat in front of. 

There’s a woman there, thin and angry, a staff in her hand that looks stained with what Gendry prays isn’t blood, not Arya’s blood. She twirls the staff, a dangerous look in her eyes that reminds him of the men from Harrenhal, the ones who enjoyed the Mountain’s torture, watching helpless peasants bleed and scream. The ones who got off on the pain of their victims. Her mouth curls into a cruel smirk as she addresses Arya, “Seems a girl has found a friend. I wonder if he’ll bleed the same as you do.”

The woman moves closer, hitting the ground every few feet with her staff, and he can feel Arya flinch against him with each sound. He grasps her arms and stands slowly, letting her pick herself up with him. At his full height, he realizes just how tiny she is, how little she’s grown since their time with the Brotherhood, still skinny and drowning under her baggy rags, head barely up to his shoulders. But then she turns around and places her back to him, placing her full attention on the woman before them.

He can see the tension in her stance, the way she seems primed to flee, to leave him behind as no more than a memory. And he knows, Gendry knows he cannot lose her again. Sliding his hands down to her waist, he does his best to move Arya aside, at least enough so she is not using herself to shield his much larger body. But he cannot budge her tiny frame, and she makes tiny slapping motions at his hands when he tries to alter his grip. Craning his neck in order to look at her face rather than the other woman in the alley, he blinks, because in the scarce minutes since they ran into each other, this is the first time she’s truly looked like Arya Stark again.

She’s… angry, he thinks, relatively certain it’s not actually directed at him. The only comparison he can come up with is a wolf defending her pack, all raw energy vibrating to be unleashed violently. One of her hands rests on his forearm, giving it what he hopes is meant to be a reassuring squeeze. The rush of her bare skin against his is a shock, one that is not wholly unpleasant, but enough to shake him of the fog that had covered his mind.

When she loosens her grasp on him and takes a sure step forward, he lets her go, willing himself to stay still, the main thing she seems to need from him at the moment. He wants to bundle Arya up in his arms and carry her off to the forge, bar the doors and never come out, but he holds himself steady, barely breathing with the effort it takes not to follow his every instinct. 

All the noise of bustling Braavos has been sucked away, and he hears naught but the sharp striking of a staff against the ground as the woman saunters closer. When she moves to the left, Arya shifts as well, using her grip on his arm to drag him along, always staying between them. Gendry lets himself be moved, realizing there is something at stake here that he doesn’t comprehend. 

Tilting her head, the woman looks at the two of them one more, an unsettlingly blank stare directed at the way they were drawn together. “Oh, I see how it is. A girl has found more than a friend, hasn’t she? This boy knew you once. He’s a part of that past you’re trying so hard to forget, isn’t he _No One_?” There’s something calculating in her tone on the last phrase that makes Arya flinch hard, snatching her hand away from his wrist, where it had been wandering closer and closer to holding his hand. 

“Leave him be.” Arya’s voice is flat, cold; that Northern accent he’s been missing so much gone, replaced with one that is utterly worn. She sounds completely different from the way she was saying his name only moments ago. “This has nothing to do with him.” 

Dead eyes gleam dangerously as a smirk starts to work it’s way across the woman’s face. “Well, unfortunately for him, I do believe it does.” Without any warning, she lunges forward, swinging the staff high, lightning fast as it whips at his head. Gendry manages to duck in time, tumbling to the dirt. He rolls, trying to regain his feet in time to deflect the next blow, but it never comes. 

Instead he watches as Arya, Arya who looks so tired and skinny a slight breeze could knock her over, crashes into his attacker with a yell, slamming her to the wall with enough force that she drops her weapon in surprise. But rather than look dismayed, she laughs. A crazed look enters her eyes as she whips her head back and bashes it into Arya’s face. 

Then it’s a free for all, and he wants to intervene, pull Arya away from this madwoman, but they’re moving too fast for him to be sure where a punch would land. It’s almost like the water dancing Arya used to show off in the Riverlands, all twisting and dodging, never letting the other land more than a glancing blow. But there are no swords, no grace to this fight, just desperate fists. And in an instant it’s over, and Arya’s on the ground, restrained by this thin, angry woman.

Gendry starts forward, knowing he has to do something, has to at least distract her enough so Arya can get away, find somewhere safe to hide. Clucking her tongue, the thin woman wrenches Arya’s arm further behind her back, grinning with glee as she whimpers and Gendry stops dead in his tracks. “Now, now, we can’t have that now can we? Can’t have No One remembering the girl she used to be?” She looks up at him now, a cat playing with its prey, before twisting her grip even more, another cry of pain escaping Arya’s lips. “Hmm, what shall we do with you, blacksmith? I’m sure you have many shiny, sharp toys I can use to separate your life from your body, but perhaps I’ll be generous and let you decide if it will be fast or slow.”

Before he can move, can even formulate a glimmer of a plan to find some way out of this situation, Arya speaks, this time with her own voice, worn and strained as it is. “Please no. Just let him go. I’ll come with you, I’ll come back to the temple, you can punish me however you wish, but please just leave him be. He’ll forget about me soon again anyways.” Gendry wants to protest, but even as pale and unseeing as her gaze is, he can read the intention in Arya’s eyes clear as day; she is saving him and won’t accept any arguments.

But he simply wouldn’t be himself if he backed down without a fight. He won’t lose Arya again, not after he just found her. He doesn’t think he’d survive it a second time. In the seconds he spends trying to find the right words, the other member of this standoff beats him to the punch. “Oh, girl, you know that’s not how this works. He’s a part of the past that No One must let go of.”

“I said no!” Arya cried out, somehow maneuvering her way out of the other girl’s hold on her, managing to flip her into the dirt, pressing down on her back with a knee that Gendry personally knew was unnaturally pointy. She looked up at him, unnervingly catching his eyes with her own sightless ones, and it was almost like it used to be, when he could read her every emotion with only a glance. But then she turned back down to her adversary with a determined, violent expression. “A girl will go with the Waif, but the Waif will leave the boy alone. His name has not been offered, so he will not die this day.” She pushed the so-called Waif’s face into the dirt, ignoring the growled threats muffled by the ground.

Sensing the immediate danger was over, Gendry finally moved again, intent on pulling Arya back into his arms after getting them both away from this madwoman. “Arry, I–” 

“You need to go!” Her voice is shrill, a note of panic leaking through as she battles with her captive. At her outburst, he runs faster, skidding to his knees just as she jabs her fingers hard into the juncture of the Waif’s neck, stilling her instantly. Hesitantly, Arya redistributes her weight, seemingly unsure if she’d actually incapacitated her enemy. 

When she doesn’t twitch, Arya relaxes and turns to Gendry, the hardened glare furrowing her brows replaced by something soft and broken. He reaches for her, so close but still so far away when she shrinks back as soon as he brushes her hand, drawing the ragged robe around her. “You need to go, Ge– you need to go.” 

The idea of leaving her behind, now that they’re back together again, is completely unthinkable. Confused and a little hurt, he chokes out,“Why? Why can’t you come with me? Why would you tell her you’ll go back to some temple with her? She was trying to kill you!” By the end he’s loud and angry, the fear of losing her transformed into sheer rage.

Her calm, almost clinical tone stops him up short, though her sightless eyes seem to dart everywhere but in his direction. “She wasn’t trying to kill me, she’s training me. But she does want to kill you.” Finally, she looks back at him, and he has to swallow back the sob when he sees her face fully. She’s so gaunt, her eyes so haunting. But the ferocious bite is all Stark as she snarls, “And I can’t let that happen.” 

Leaning closer, he tries to funnel all his desperation into trying to make her understand. “You once told me you could be my family! So this is me, calling in that offer! Arya, please be my family, and let me be yours.” 

“I can’t do that, she’ll come after you!” Arya takes a deep breath, before staring up at him with those damned eyes of hers, lip trembling as she whispers, “I have to keep you safe, can’t you understand that?” 

He’s not sure how long they stood there, his hand outstretched as she stared him down with those unseeing eyes. Gendry wants to shake her, wants to haul her over his shoulder, wants to pull her so close she’ll never leave him again. But she is Arya Stark, and he knows that once her mind is made up, it would take a miracle to change it. So instead, he hugs her tightly, brushes his lips to her forehead once, twice, three times before forcing himself back. “Be careful.”

She gives him an unimpressed look, looking so like the girl he once knew as she snorts, reminding him, “I’m always careful. You’re the one too stupid to stay safe. Putting yourself in the middle of a fight that doesn’t concern you.” 

“You were fighting, of course it concerns me,” he snaps back, before pausing and stopping himself from dragging them both into a pointless argument that does nothing but stall their parting. He takes a deep breath. “Just, Arya…” He’s not sure what he wants to stay that he hasn’t already told her. That he’s here, that he’s worried about her, that she has to come back because he’ll go completely mad if he loses her again? Shaking his head, Gendry goes to step back, squeezing her hands gently as he gathers the courage to turn around and leave. 

But she stops him, tugging on his hands caught in hers, forcing him to stare into those unseeing yet so incredibly perceptive eyes. “What Gendry? What did you want to say?” 

“I don’t know, I don’t know Arya.” He sighs, too tired of life in general. “I just know I can’t lose you again.” His voice cracks on the last sentence, because he accepted long ago this girl would be the death of him in some form or another. 

She brought their clasped fingers to her lips, not seeing his involuntary flinch from the contact, and bowed over them like a mockery of Westerosi knights and their stupid chivalry. “This will not be the last time you see me Gendry. I swear it.” Then she pushed him away, unerringly turning him back the way he had come. Putting one foot in front of the other, he made himself go, only pivoting back at the last second before he had to turn left.

But she was gone, as was the Waif.

Gendry waits for her to return, but he waits for weeks. Everyday he stares at that street corner, hoping to see her again, but she is never there. He asks after her to the other beggars, gives away precious coins for the mere mention of the blind girl with pale iron in her eyes, but learns nothing. Only that she’d appeared there that same morning he found her, and had yet to return. Just when he is about to tear his hair out, she finds him. 

It’s the middle of the night, and he’d woken once more from a nightmare, another nightmare where all he sees is Arya and every way she could have been blinded, all the things that could happen to an innocent girl with even less of a chance to defend herself. Laying in his bed, he scrubs a hand over his face, too exhausted to fall back to sleep. 

But he hears a noise, a scrabbling too loud to be just a rat. Quickly pulling on a pair of pants, he reaches for the enormous hammer he keeps next to his bed, hefting it up as he moves quietly in the pitch black room.

And then Arya falls through his window and lands crouched at his feet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To have found each other is a miracle, but now Gendry and Arya still need to learn how to live. Emotional discussions, a few setbacks, and a new direction in their relationship all play their roles in that new tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behold the fucking chapter I have been affectionately swearing about for the last few weeks, because it clocks in at a whopping 16,738 words. Which makes it a single chapter that is longer than any other complete fic I've ever written. And oh dear god, was I a mess of emotions while writing it.
> 
> This is the chapter when almost all of those tags up there come into play. I have done my best to write a realistic representation of a rape survivor who is coming to terms with their attack and moving past it. However, I know that everyone reacts to trauma differently, so I would ask that everyone please be respectful of how I have chosen to portray Gendry and Arya here. I also went into Arya's treatment in the House of Black and White, as well as the events surrounding the death of Meryn Trant, though not as deeply as Gendry's trauma. If anyone has specific concerns before reading the chapter, please feel free to message me on Tumblr (same username), and I will do my best to answer as quickly as I can.
> 
> This was the story I set out to write when I decided this was my plan for Big Bang. I don't think there are enough stories focused on the pain these characters go through, but even moreso, their recovery from that pain. Arya and Gendry are strong individuals who will not allow the events in their pasts to rule their futures, and I was proud to write my version of how they reached that point together.

The comforting scent of a forge envelops her like a warm blanket, and Arya lets herself relax for the first time in what has probably been years. A floorboard creaks to her right, freezing her in place, that single moment of calm washed away as soon as it had settled, but then there’s an exhale, and she can feel a small grin forming. 

Arya may not be able to see Gendry’s face, but she knows it is him. His steady presence and sturdy chest were once the only sanctuary she had left in the world, and then she’d thought him gone forever, lost to the whims of the Red Witch. Finding him here in Braavos after all these years had felt like a dream, the intrinsically happy kind that she was no longer familiar with. The kind she hadn’t had since her father had died.

“It’s just me, Gendry.”

“ _ Arya. _ ” So many emotions packed into one word, she cannot parse through everything he must be feeling before she is lifted off of her feet into the muscle corded arms belonging to her once best friend. Her face nestles into his neck as he sways slowly, murmuring words under his breath too garbled to understand. 

There’s something comforting in being able to burrow against his shoulder, to finally allow herself to feel the relief that had started coursing through her veins from the moment he reached for her hand on the street. His fingers had shocked her, the familiarity of his skin jolting her back to herself after so long spent trying to avoid knowing exactly who Arya Stark was at her core.

Pulling back slightly, she stares up to where she hopes his eyes are. “Hi.” His hands feel like they cover every inch of her head, as he strokes her hair away from her face, like he can scarcely believe it’s actually her either. 

“Gods Arry, where have you been? Are you okay? Why didn’t you—” he pauses in his fussing, finally seeing the bruises that she knows decorate her neck, one last gift from the Waif before she left the House once and for all. Gendry gently tilts her head after turning them both around, his voice quiet but now much closer again. “You’re hurt. What did she do to you?”

She reaches up for his hands, pulling them from her neck to cradle them in her own. “Nothing that will not fade in time. They’re just bruises, nothing more. I promise Gendry, none of my blood was spilled.”  _ Not this time. _ But she keeps that last part silent, no need to worry him more over things he cannot change. Still stroking along the backs of his palms, she feels bereft when he suddenly pulls back, a jarring shift away from where she is standing in what she thinks is the center of his small room. 

Awkwardly, she tries to determine what went wrong, why he left, but then he speaks, his voice just as rough and deep as she remembers. “Well, it’s late and you probably need sleep, so you should take the bed.” Arya imagines he’s nodding his head, the way he used to when his mind was made up. 

“But I’m not tired. And I thought we could talk some more…” she offers, hesitant to tell him she truly just wants to be in his presence a little while longer, let this change in circumstance sink in before she closes her eyes to sleep. She turns toward the sound of his voice, then hears an immediate creak in his floor boards and a hurried intake of breath. She freezes, and there’s a soft exhale. There’s something he’s not telling her, some reason he’s not as comfortable with her as she still is with him. And that hurts. 

But that is not a hurt they must delve into tonight. Not on top of everything else that still lies unsaid between them.

Squaring her shoulders, she adopts the tone her father used to use on quarreling bannerman, the one that meant  _ I hear you and I respect you, but you must show me the same _ . “Or perhaps we should wait for the morning. I can’t imagine it will be a short discussion.” She hears him snort quietly, a concession as much as anything. “We should share the bed though, I don’t think the ground will be particularly comfortable.”

“No, you’ll take the bed. It’s too small to fit us both, so you at least should get a decent night’s rest.” The way he phrases it tells her he doesn’t think he will, and something must show on her face, because he firmly says, “No, Arya.” He says it with such finality, like the decision’s already been made and all she has to do is comply. And never let it be said that Arya Stark doesn’t know how to pick her battles, as she decides to let this one go.

Bowing her head, Arya reaches out an arm that he takes seconds later, guiding her by the elbow to the cot in the corner of the room. He helps her remove the tattered cloak she wears, unlaces her boots once she’s sitting down, and guides her to lay on a bed that smells like smoke and sweat and something indescribable she’s always just thought of as  _ him _ . Burrowing down into the flat pillow, she hears a muffled laugh at the punches she throws at it, trying to fluff it to her liking.

“In the morning, I’ll find you some new clothes and arrange a bath.” 

He starts to get up, leaning against the cot from where he kneels on the floor, but she catches his arm, keeping him close as she asks, “And then we’ll talk?” 

“Aye, and then we’ll talk.” She thinks he wants to say more, an aborted syllable starts to escape him, but the claws of sleep drag her under, and the last thing she feels is the light pressure of lips on her forehead.

* * *

Gendry doesn’t look up from his work as the back door to his home closes quietly, soft, familiar footsteps padding his way. “I feel much better now, thank you for suggesting the bath.” 

Looking up, he catches a glimpse of Arya silhouetted by the evening sun as she runs a cloth through her hair, drying the dripping strands with one hand. She stretches, and the pale gray shirt he bought from the stall down the street raises up, showing him a snowy white swathe of skin above her trousers. He’s struck dumb for a moment, caught off guard as she flits around him, unerringly finding his worn trunk and placing the rest of her new clothes inside. Arya starts to turn back towards him, and he jolts, abruptly pivoting back to his work with burning red cheeks. 

Then she ruins any concentration he had left when she decides to hop up onto his work table right next to him, swinging her feet back and forth. “Well you’re awfully quiet, even for you. Is everything okay?”

“What, no, I mean yes, I mean… you um, you look good.” Stuttering, he finally looks back at her, doing his best to avoid staring anywhere except at her face. She’s Arya, even blind she could tell if he was ogling her. But there is no recrimination in her expression, only a curious blush as she tucks a curling tendril of hair behind her ear. He rushes to reassure her, “I mean, you look more like you, if that makes sense.” 

But that was apparently not what she wanted to hear, because that lovely pink in her cheeks fades as she sighs and turns away, fingers drumming a staccato beat on his table. She hasn’t said much today. Arya had slept until after midday, while he’d barely caught a wink of sleep last night, so very conscious of every breath she took in his small home. When she finally awoke, he’d been granted a pleased smile for the fresh fruit on the table and the stack of clothes from the marketplace. She’d been all too happy to accept his suggestion of a trip to the bathhouse, flitting out the back door with nothing more than a hand to his arm in thanks, unable to see the way he stopped in the middle of walking back to his forge, body confused at the casual contact. 

They’re different people now than they were when they had last seen each other. He used to be so happy whenever she cuddled next to him at night, nervous as hell that someone would take offense to his familiarity with a highborn lady, but glad she could find some sort of comfort from him. But now he was a mess, his body still stuck in a night that happened years ago whenever his skin brushed another person’s.

And he may not know what all Arya has gone through in the years since they parted, but he knows that girls don’t just become blind out of the blue. That doesn’t even begin to take into account the thin scars he could barely make out in the moonlight last night. Something must have happened to her, something bad.

Clearing his throat, Gendry sets down his hammer and takes off his apron, knowing that no more work will be done this evening. Not when the unknown of what has shaped Arya into the woman she is now stares him in the face. Literally stares him in the face, as those pale sightless eyes of hers follow his every move as he putters around the forge, stalling for time. But eventually there are no more distractions to be had, and he reaches a hand out for her, resting his palm on her thigh lightly before she slides down to the floor, padding over to stand just in front of him. 

One of her hands comes up to rest on his chest, picking absentmindedly at a stray thread as her head tilts up, the way it always had when she had to crane her neck to glare at him. She’s close again, but for once he doesn’t want to run and hide his head in the sand. No, instead he wants to savor this, because after tonight, who knows if she’ll even be here in the morning.

He’s still finding the courage to open his mouth when she beats him to it, her voice soft but ever so determined, “Do you think it’s time we had that talk now?” 

“Aye,” he huffed a short laugh. “Should probably have it sooner than later, otherwise we’ll shove it all down and never say a word.” Or they’d let things simmer beneath the surface until it all exploded outwards, and who knew if their friendship could survive a second time.

She’s facing him, but not truly looking at him, the gaze through her lashes focusing just beyond his ear and gods he wished he could read her the way he used to. “Would that really be so bad? To simply pick up where we left off?” Biting at her lip, she finally turns to his face, and somehow she looks even more reluctant to have this conversation than he is.

“I don’t think it would be good,” he pauses, tracing a trembling fingertip just under one of those blind eyes before dropping his arm back to his side, “and besides, I think there are some parts of the past few years we can’t ignore completely.”

“That’s regrettably true, isn’t it? Alright,” her hands drifted down to hold his, sparks shooting through their entwined fingers, “where shall we begin blacksmith?”

* * *

Inside, Arya shakes like a leaf caught on the wind, hoping this discussion will not end with her being abandoned once more by her best friend. There’s so much to tell Gendry, and the idea of that knowledge changing his opinion of her so drastically terrifies her. She doesn’t think she could bear the pain again, of having no one, of being No One. But to tell him of how easily she had lost herself, of what she’d done since they’d parted; she wasn’t quite sure how to do that.

So perhaps it was a blessing when he decided to dive in head first.

“Maybe at the beginning? Or really, before we were separated.” He seemed able to tell she was about to argue, cutting her off with a squeeze of fingers. Taking a deep breath, he rushed through the next part, all his words out in one burst. “I shouldn’t have told you you couldn’t be my family.”

“Gendry, you—”

“No, I need to tell you that I’m sorry. Because you were, you  _ are _ the only family I’ve ever had beside my mum. But I didn’t know how we could keep being that for each other when you were going to be Lady Stark again, and I’d still be just a blacksmith.”

Flipping their hands over while he’s speaking, she traces abstract patterns on his palm, stroking along his clammy skin before clasping them again and tilting her head in his direction. “I figured out a long time ago what you meant. And yes, it hurt at the time, it hurt badly, but I forgave you. I think I forgave you the moment that witch stole you away.”

This time she can feel the way he violently flinches, and several missing pieces begin to appear in her mind, terrible thoughts of how exactly that woman had hurt him starting to clarify. For so long, she’d thought him dead, thought the woman and her Red God had sacrificed him to the flames, that they’d burnt him to ash, until nothing of Gendry was left. Yet he’s here, alive with her in Braavos, but with something weighing heavily on him, something that the Red Woman had done to him. He hadn’t been able to escape entirely unscathed.

Voice soft, she prompted him, “So what happened after she took you?” Another violent shudder, and he almost manages to jerk his hands out of hers, but she clamps down, knowing she cannot let go of him, not now.

“She took me to Dragonstone, met the king there. They told me I was one of Robert’s bastards, probably the only one left after Cersei and Joffrey tried to have us all killed.” Arya can feel his arm lift in a shrug, knows the self-deprecating way his face is twisting as he admits that. “They said I had king’s blood running through my veins, that I was special.”

Opening her mouth to reassure him, he hastily cuts her off, rushing through the next part of this confession, voice blank and unfeeling, like he’s just recounting the experience of someone else. “So she stripped me down, tied me up, and stuck leeches on my cock. Once they were…” he seems to struggle here, hands shaking as he’s grasping for a word or phrase, or maybe just the courage to continue, “…full, she plucked them off and threw them into a fire. The king said the names of your brother and a few other men. Then I was sent to the dungeon. Thought I was going to die on that fucking island until Ser Davos helped me escape. I made it to King’s Landing and stayed there for a bit before coming here. Made as much of a home here as I could when I have no one here, but I have a forge and a bed to call my own. So here I am.”

The silence fills the space between them as she tries to grapple with all he has just told her. She can tell he’s telling the truth, or at least most of the truth, and if anyone has earned a small bit of privacy, it is Gendry. So she lets him keep the painful memories he won’t say to himself. She swallows her questions for the time being and instead mentally focuses on both of her hands in his as she prepares herself to tell the story of just how she’s found herself here, in the dirty backroom of a Braavosi forge.

“When you le— when she took you, I couldn’t stay with the Brotherhood any longer. They’d sold you and they’d sold Hot Pie and they were going to sell me, even if it was to my brother, and I just couldn’t look any of them in the eye anymore. So I ran.” 

Gendry snorts, and lifts their hands to his lips, pressing a dry kiss to the back of one of hers. Blood rushes to her cheeks in an overwhelming blush, and she prays the room is as dark as the time of night would indicate. “Not sure if I should say thank you, but thank you for making sure those greedy fucks didn’t get another piece of gold from capturing us.” 

The corners of her mouth lift up in a shy smile, the expression an unfamiliar use of the muscles in her cheeks, before the horror of those next few days dawns on her again like it’s happening all over again and her face drops like a lead weight. “I meant to make it to the Twins before the wedding, so I could see both my brother and my mother.”

“Oh gods, you didn’t…”

“No, I didn’t make it there before the wedding. The Hound actually found me before that could come to pass, took me hostage again.” Allowing herself a brief smirk, she recounts, “Bastard probably saved my life with all the bitching he did about me and how long we were taking to travel. I… may have made his life extremely difficult over those first couple of days.”

“Because you’ve never, ever been difficult once in your life.” She knows he means no harm in his teasing, but Arya still proceeds to kick him under the table, nailing him in the shins. The pained groan that leaks out satisfies her, so she rubs his palm in apology. 

They settle again, and when she begins to speak, her voice is quiet and controlled. “We made it to the Twins just as the attack on the army began. I saw Robb’s wolf, Grey Wind, outside the keep and bolted for his cage, but the Hound held me back. He could tell right away that there was nothing we could do. He knocked out, slung me over his shoulder, and left in the chaos. Only other piece I really remember of that night is the image of my brother’s body with Grey Wind’s head sewn in place of his own.” 

“Oh my gods, Arya, I can’t…” All he can do is lace his fingers through hers and hold on tight, let his touch ground her in this moment with him, no matter the discomfort it may cause him.

Clawing herself away from the painful remembrances that threaten to overwhelm her, Arya soldiers on, recounting those weeks, months with the Hound, of finding Needle again, of killing Polliver and avenging Lommy, of making their way to the fucking Vale and finding out her aunt had died only days before. She tells him of how they'd run into the lady knight and the Hound had lost that fight, how Arya had robbed him and left him for dead on the side of a mountain. She manages to speak of every significant moment, every detail of her time up until the second she stepped into the House of Black and White, but then she stops, because the rest of her story involves truths about herself she is unsure how to tell.

The silence stretches and stretches, Arya trapped in her past with nowhere to run, her voice caught in her throat as she desperately tries to think of a way to say this next part of her history that will not end with Gendry thinking of her as a monster. So lost in her own mind, she does not hear him move, nearly jumps out of her chair when he stands next to her, the floorboards creaking as he crouches.

* * *

Gendry can tell he’s surprised her, as her hands jerk out of his to cover the silent tears that have been running down her face since she mentioned her brother. He’d known when they’d sat down that Arya is not the same relatively innocent girl he’d met in King’s Landing so many years ago. It was in the deliberate way she moved, the far more careful way she chose her words instead of blurting out the first thing that popped into her head. 

But he still saw glimpses of the girl he once called Arry. She’d kicked him only minutes ago, had teased him, had tried to save him from the strange woman in the streets when they’d found each other again. 

“You don’t have to tell me anything else Arya, not tonight, not ever if you don’t want to. I have no right to demand it of you, and gods I’m sorry for making you relive all of that.” He reaches up, rests his hand against her cheek in some weak attempt at consolation, still holding her own hands in his other palm.

Another silence settles over them before she gently lets her head sag into his touch. A curtain of silky brown hair falls over her face, and he drops her hands to tuck it behind her ear without even thinking. Grinning wryly, she takes his hand back to her lap and plays lightly with his fingers as she somehow looks him directly in the eye, conviction plain on her face.

“No, I want to tell you. I think you’re the only person who could maybe possibly understand the person I’ve become.” He blinks and suddenly Arya’s let go of him to wring her hands in her lap. “Do you remember Jaqen H’ghar?” she asks.

Instantly, the image of a frightening man in chains with odd red and white hair appears in his mind. The memory of arguing with Arya about whose names she should have given to the assassin seeps back into his mind, and Gendry swallows hard. He can already tell he will not like the way this is going. “Aye, I remember him.”

“Before he left us in the Riverlands, he gave me a coin, said I could use it to get to Braavos if I ever wanted to escape Westeros and find him again. All I would have to do is tell a man from Braavos ‘Valar morghulis’ and he would take me to Braavos. Then, I could train to become a Faceless Man like him.”

Confused, he starts to ask, “But what is a Faceless—” before she interrupts him.

“Faceless Men are assassins, the best in the known world.” He goes to say something again, but somehow she just seems to know his every move as she puts a hand over his mouth and stops the words before they ever leave his throat. “They have no true identity, and can take on the persona of any face at their disposal. They know a thousand ways to kill you without blinking, and a million more if they’re willing to put in a little bit of effort.” 

And now she sounds like she’s repeating lessons that have been taught to her by rote, no feeling in her words as she recites them to him. “Could be poison, a knife in the heart, a push down the stairs. They’re deadly, and effective, but they have no loyalty to anything but the Many-Faced God. Death.” Arya finally stops and shakes her head, appearing to come out of the trance or whatever she had been in. She uncovers his mouth, a gesture he takes as a symbol to speak, though she doesn not entirely remove it from his face, instead lightly resting it on his cheek.

“So you joined them then? Became an assassin?”

Confusion twists her expression, and Arya charts his features with her fingers, carefully cataloguing his own visage. “You’re not— you’re not afraid of me?” she whispers in shock.

“Course I’m not scared of you, you’re still Arry. You’re still the same little shit I had to hold back from stabbing the Hound all those years ago.” He shrugged, suddenly feeling self conscious. “I just assume you’re better at backing up your own threats now.”

A tremulous smile breaks out across her face before she throws herself out of her chair and into his arms, head tucked snugly under his chin and arms in a vice grip around his neck. He goes stiff and strained before slowly drawing his own arms down to wrap around her waist, letting himself take a deep breath of her clean hair before gently nudging her away from his body. 

She doesn’t move far, only sits next to him on the floor and leans back against the table leg. “Thank you, I guess I just really needed to hear that.” He pretends he doesn’t see her discreetly wiping away the few tears that shine in the candlelight. “Anyways, yes, I joined them, or at least I tried to.”

His brow wrinkles involuntarily. “Only tried? The Arya I know can do anything she sets her stubborn heart on.”

“Yes, it was only tried, because that was the problem,” she sighs and reaches for his hand, exhaling again once she’s laced their fingers once more. “I could never let go of everything that makes me  _ me _ and simply be No One. I wanted to, gods know I struggled to ease the pain of being alone by letting them mold me as they pleased, but I just couldn’t do it. And that was when I realized Meryn Trant was here, so I killed him in the most bloody, violent way I could think of, and I stole one of the House’s faces to do it.”

“He’s the one that killed Syrio, right?”

“Yes, he was.”

“Then I’m glad he’s dead. He’s been on your list for as long as you’ve had one.” Contemplating her words, he’s about to ask her to go on, but then is stuck on a particular phrase she used. “What do you mean you stole one of the House’s faces?”

Arya is quiet for so long he thinks she’s going to ignore his question, but then she looks up at him, worrying her lip. “The Faceless Men live in a temple called the House of Black and White, where they worship the God of Death. People come there, seeking the gift of death for themselves or they pay for it to be given to others. When someone dies, the House takes their face and does some sort of blood magic on it, so that they can wear the face. It’s a bit like putting on a mask for a masquerade, but it’s not just a mask, you become the person whose face it was. You’re not fully  _ you _ anymore.”

And now he feels like he should stop her, feels like he finally understands why she was so hesitant to tell him all of this before, but truth be told, it makes no difference to him. She is and always will be Arya, Arry, to him. Only perhaps now a tad more bloodthirsty. So instead he squashes down his own discomfort and pulls her closer, a wordless confirmation that he will always be by her side.

“After I saw Meryn Trant, I followed him to a brothel. Found out he had a taste for causing pain to young girls, littler than you’ve ever known me to be.” Just the idea of that makes Gendry want to vomit, but he keeps his mouth clamped firmly shut and carries on holding tight to Arya’s hand. “I went back to the House and stole the face of a child, returned to that brothel, and made sure he picked me to go upstairs to his room. He beat the other two girls first, made them cry. When he started on me, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a sound, so he hit me harder and harder.”

This feels too close to his dreams, those nightmares of her that he fears he will never fully be rid of. He has to know, has to ask, “He didn’t, you weren’t…” but he can’t even get the words out.

“No, he never raped me, Gendry, I promise. And neither has anyone else,” she reassures him, probably feeling the tension in his arms. “No, instead I stabbed him in the eye and the chest, then I slit his throat after I told him I was Arya Stark. Not sure if he even heard me, but it was another name off my list.”

“After that I tried to replace the face I stole, but Jaqen and the Waif found me. They told me I had taken a life that wasn’t mine to take, and then I was blind.” Involuntarily, he looks to her eyes, glaring sightlessly in the hazy darkness of his room. He chances another brush to her cheek with shy fingers, the tiniest bit proud of the pink tinge to her cheeks it provokes. 

Clearing her throat, she finishes her story, telling him, “I think that was several months ago. Not exactly sure, I’ve lost track of time here so easily. I’ve been living on the streets, begging for money and food. But the Waif has been training me I guess, teaching me to lie and fight, doing her best to force me out of the Faceless Men. If only she knew the fastest way to get me to turn my back on all of it was to find you.” Slowly, her head leans against his shoulder, and for once he doesn’t even want to flinch away, because it soothes his soul, knowing that Arya trusts him enough, even after so long apart, to relax so easily with him.

A thought niggles in his brain, because he does know her, knows how furiously she craved revenge. “But why? Why am I enough to let go of all of that? You must have wanted it so badly to be willing to bear all of that just for a chance to succeed.”

She turns her head and looks at him with such incredulity, he’s almost ashamed he said anything. “Because you’re pack.” And she says it so honestly, so naturally, that he believes her. “Because I thought you were long dead with my parents and brothers, and suddenly I could have you back. All I had to do was walk in the door and Jaqen knew, he knew I didn’t want that life anymore. I didn’t even have to explain, just gathered my things and left. The Waif disagreed, but…” Here she shrugged, looking a little lost for words. “I wasn’t going to let her stop me, not after I finally had something to live for again. So I waited before I came back here, I wanted to make sure she didn’t follow me. I couldn’t lead her to you.”

No more words are said that night, at least none of great importance. Instead they ready themselves for bed, she tries to give him back his cot, and he refuses, doing his best to ignore the adorable little pout she gives. Lying on the ground, stiff as a board, he falls asleep thinking that the faint sound of her breath could become his favorite lullaby.

* * *

The next few weeks are spent finding a routine living together, in this little house with no chaperones to chastise them when they are becoming too familiar with each other. 

It’s novel to Arya, this sense of freedom without any adults monitoring her every move. She learns how to help around the forge, cleaning blades, handling the money, and speaking with customers, who are always so surprised to find themselves being deftly handled by the blind foundling the reticent blacksmith had taken on. 

Gendry reacquaints himself with sharing his hard earned personal space with another, and privately decides if she had been anyone but Arya, he would have less than politely asked her to leave after the first week. But she is Arya, he’s never truly been able to deny her much, and honestly? It’s nice, having her here all the time, to talk to and laugh with, to trust implicitly. Even if she’s touched him more than every other person he’s met put together over the span of a few weeks.

Of course, Arya has always been a particularly tactile person, and her blindness seems to have elevated that trait immeasurably. She’s taken to brushing her fingers along his arms throughout the day, almost as if she’s reminding herself that he’s here in a more physical way than simply listening to him breathe. Her steps are so silent, he never hears her coming, his only warning the tingling of gooseflesh on his arms the instant before contact.

Every night she links his ankles with hers under the table while they eat whatever they’ve scrounged up for dinner, happily chatting along like the mere contact of her skin doesn’t light his insides aflame. 

When they leave the forge to shop or barter with the other merchants, she keeps a firm grip on his arm or hand, pulling him along as she wanders in excitement. He knows they must look amusing, his much larger frame reluctantly trailing after the tiny ball of energy, but he’s hardly going to admonish her, too irrationally nervous he will lose her again in a crowd should they not have a hold on each other.

Overall, he thinks the nearness he truly enjoys comes after she’s changed into her night clothes and pokes him until he sits on the bed, plopping down in front of him and handing him the comb he’d bargained for at the market after she’d complained at least three times about how tangled her hair was getting. She’d forced him to learn how to tease out the knots in her curls, and only pinched him hard the once when he commented that she should just chop it all off again if she didn’t want to deal with it. He’d surprised them both when he’d leaned down to peck the top of her head with a kiss, immensely glad she couldn’t see the wine red blush staining his cheeks afterwards.

During this quiet ritual before they blow out the candles, she teaches him to plait her hair back so it will not snarl in her sleep. According to Arya, he is far more considerate in his taming of her locks than either her mother or Sansa, both of whom would grow easily frustrated at her squirming. Knowing how she used to be, always vibrating with the need to move, he can understand that, but this Arya he is growing to know now understands the peacefulness of silence.

Eventually she asks him to help her with her hair in the mornings, because she tells him his fingers are so much more clever and precise than her own. He knows she’s lying, anyone who’s ever seen her hold a bow knows that’s not true, but he agrees nevertheless. This type of closeness, one where he’s helping her with something so commonplace and casual, lets him pretend for only a few minutes that they are exactly who they present themselves as: a simple blacksmith and the woman he makes his home with. 

But they both know their lives will never be that simple.

* * *

It’s late afternoon when she brings it up, perched on his work table as he finishes off a commissioned blade. She’s taken to sitting by him as he works, the same way she had in Harrenhal, and the way she sits so quietly he would assume she was studying him, if only she could see. 

“I really think we should try sharing the bed.” Her voice is nonchalant as she continues, as if the blood in his veins hadn’t immediately frozen at the very prospect. “It’s no good for you to be sleeping on the ground night after night when there’s more than enough room for both of us up there, no matter how stupidly big you are. As you like to remind me, I’ve barely grown an inch since I was a child.” She’s smiling up at him in self-deprecation, so sure he’ll accept the joke at her own expense and maybe think about agreeing to this compromise.

“Arya, no, we can’t.”

“Well, why not?” She jumps down from the table and starts jabbing a finger into his chest with each phrase, backing him farther and farther until his back is against a wall. “Are you planning on telling me it would be dishonorable on your part? Because that’s just ridiculous at this point, there’s not a single person in this city who gives a fuck as to whether or not you’ve fucked me, nor even knows who the fuck I am but you and me.” She gestures wildly as she catches her breath, every exhale puffing into the open neck of his tunic.

“I would never do anything to dishonor you Arya! How can you even think—”

“That’s my point you idiot, I know you wouldn’t! You’re the best man I know, so why can’t I want you to be comfortable and not give up your bed for me? I know you won’t let me sleep down there instead, so why can’t we just share it?” Her voice cracks, helpless to understand why he won’t even think about it, dismissing her entirely out of hand.

“Because for once in your life Arya, it’s not about you!” he roars now, raging at her for her persistence, at the Red Woman for doing this to him, but mostly at himself for ever thinking he could have this when he’s so broken inside. “It’s about me! I won’t be able to sleep, not with another person in my bed! I don’t want to wake up and think you’re her!” Chest heaving, he stops abruptly, too many words slipped through his defenses already. 

A cautious hand reaches up to touch his face, but pauses, hovers there a hairsbreadth from his cheek. He peers down at Arya, who looks more timid than he’s ever seen her. When she speaks, the fierce passion is gone from her tone, replaced with a coolly detached nothingness that should chill him to the bone. “When you asked me if Trant had raped me, it wasn’t just because you were worried about me, was it? It was because…” 

Her hand touches his cheek just as she trails off, and it doesn’t hurt and he can breathe because this is  _ Arya _ and deep down, under everything the Red Woman has left him with, he knows Arya will never touch him with the intent to harm. Gendry lets himself lean into her hand, lets himself feel the comfort her caress brings as he sighs. “Arry, it was both. She, I—I always worry about you, but after what happened with her, I just, I prayed nothing like that ever happened to you.” 

Arya moves closer, her warmth soaking into his chest as she ever so carefully leans against him. It helps that she is so tiny sometimes, not that he will ever voice that aloud, because the witch had been of height with him, could look him in the eye while twisting her spell around him. No, Arya can still tuck herself neatly against him with her warm forehead pressed into the hollow of his throat. He doesn’t know precisely when his arms came to rest on her back, but it’s nice, to be able to hug her and not see anything but her messy brown braid and the soot stained tunic that she’d confiscated from him. 

Muffled against his skin, he manages to hear her halting words. “Do you think telling me what happened could help?” He exhales sharply, and she hurries on, “So I would know what not to do, I don’t want to ever do anything that will send you back to that place or cause you pain.”

“Oh Arry,” he murmurs, making up his mind in an instant that he will tell her, because if there is anyone he can tell and not have them think badly of him, it will be her. “What I said about her stripping me and putting leeches on my cock was true, but there was more. She made me think she wanted me, that I was worth more than just some poor bastard of a king. It was intoxicating in a way, that a woman who had all this power wanted me.” He snorts, looking back he had been turned upside down the moment he had a drink of that wine. “She was naked and looking at me and gods help me, but I wanted her. Or wanted to feel like I was wanted at least, now I’m not sure.” 

Shaking his head, he presses an absentminded kiss to Arya’s head, just to reassure himself that she is there, silent as she is. “She pushed me on the bed, untied my pants, and started stroking my cock. By that point, I was confused because everything was going so fast and in my head I knew it wasn’t right, but my cock just kept getting harder every time she touched me. I was tied to the bed before I’d even realized what she’d done. Then she fucked me a little, just sat on my cock and moved a few times. I’d never even touched a woman before, so I nearly exploded after only a moment or two. She got off of me and picked up her leeches, put them down my chest and onto my cock, and gods did that hurt. At some point the king, my bloody fucking uncle, came into the room, didn’t even give me a glance as I was laying there bleeding and yelling and still half hard. Just focused in on the witch and her leeches, said the names of your brother Robb and two of the other kings before she threw them into the flames. And then I was taken to the dungeon.”

After he’s done, all the pain of the memories seeping back away, but less than it had been before, Arya tilts her head so she’s facing him. The hand that remains on his cheek brushes away the moisture leaking from his eye as she tenderly holds him close. Softly, she asks, “So you didn’t want her, she didn’t give you a choice?”

“No.”

“So she raped you.” She whispers it so simply, so bluntly, like there’s no other way to phrase it, as if this conclusion is as obvious to her as it has always been to him, though he knows of no other man, no other person, who would see it the same way.

_ “Yes.” _ His answer is more of a sob than a word as he collapses down the wall, cradling Arya against him as he cries. Her deft fingers weave into his hair as she soothes him, cooing sweet words in his ear as she rubs his skin, her touch so easy and calming that it brings up no horror in his heart.

Later, once he’s regained his composure, she looks up at him, the protective wolf once more, and tells him in a tone that leaves no room for questioning her, “I’ll kill her for what she did to you.” And mayhaps it says something bad about him that he has never heard more comforting words.

* * *

As the months drift on, Arya comes to recognize this dirty little forge is now the place she thinks of as home, that she no longer pines for the Winterfell of her memories. The day she realizes that she can’t picture her childhood bedroom or her father’s study or her mother’s solar, she breaks down in tears. She’s alone for once in their shop, Gendry had gone several houses over to trade for some eggs with the kind widow who seems to dote on him like a son. He’s still surly, but more willing to give her a smile instead of a grimace when she pats his cheek and calls him a good man. He reminds Arya of her own father in a way, and that is the thought that sets off her weeping. Her father would be happy, she thinks, to know she’d found a good man to make her home with, unconventional as it may be.

Of course he walks in their door before she can control herself, and the way he switches instantly from teasing her over the craving she had for fresh eggs to frantic concern over her tearstained face just sets her off once more. She stumbles towards him, pulling herself against his sturdiness and just lets all the pain and regret come streaming from her stupid, unseeing eyes. Gendry freezes immediately, and internally she chastises her own impetuousness, but just as quickly he bundles her up in his arms and carries her to the bed.

Though he’s grown far more used to her presence since they spoke about what had transpired with the Red Woman, Gendry always held himself back, tolerant of her own need for contact but never seeking it out himself. She’s learned not to touch him without announcing herself first, making sure he always can see her coming. Unfortunately, she still surprises him sometimes, as concentrated as he can be when absorbed in his smithing, but she hasn’t shocked him, hasn’t forced him to retreat from her for more than a moment before he will reach for her hand, a reassurance on both their parts.

Today he just holds her, lets her wring out the demons that have decided to make their presence known. When she’s sure the final tear has fallen, she flattens her palms to his shoulders and gently pushes herself away, though she remains in his embrace. Distractedly, she picks at the fraying edge of his shirt. “Thank you.”

She can feel the rumbling of his chest as her answers, “For what, holding you?” He shrugs before continuing, “You needed me to hold you, so of course I did. Might be one of the easiest things you’ve ever asked me to do.”

Her face scrunches in confusion. “But, I don’t want to hurt you, and I pretty much just flew at you when you walked in, and—” she rambles, so sure that he was just putting on a brave front while he was trying to comfort her.

Gendry takes her hand and places it over his heart, the steady, slow beat calming her fears better than words ever could. “And I promise, I feel nothing but concern for you. She’s not in my head, not today.”

“Oh, well, that’s good.” Now awkward, she searches for something to break the quiet, but for once he beats her to it.

“Why were you crying?”

“Um, that’s a complicated question.” 

She can feel his smiling lips against her forehead as he chuckles. “You’re the smart one here, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“Well, at the end there, I was crying because I missed Winterfell, but it’s not my home anymore. This is my home, here with you.” She can feel him inhale quickly, so she races on, determined not to let him get the wrong idea. “And that’s not a bad thing, because I do really love being here, with you, I’m just sad that even if I ever returned to Winterfell one day, I’m not sure if I would recognize it. Everyone I grew up with there is gone and grown up. I guess I never really had the chance to mourn my childhood, but I’m comfortable enough here and I knew you would take care of me.”

She lets him ponder on that for a minute, happy that he has kept his hold on her, forever her safe harbor in a storm. “You said that’s why you were crying in the end. But why did you start crying?”

Arya thinks about denying it, thinks about demurring again, knows he would let her, but decides to speak the truth. They’ve built something between them, something more than just friendship, and she thinks they can withstand speaking it out into the world. “I think my father would be grateful that I somehow found you again, after all the shit we’ve both been through. My mother would be appalled, but my father, he would just be happy I found a good man to make a home with.” 

A gasp fills her ears, and she almost turns away so he doesn’t see the dejection on her face. But then he guides her chin back towards him and delicately presses his lips to hers. 

* * *

That first, heart wrenching kiss is broken only when he can no longer breathe, can no longer think straight. He rests his forehead to hers, eyes closed so he cannot see the pale, sightless gaze he knows is shining up at him. Her own breaths are harsh against his lips, and if he wasn’t already sitting down he’d surely have fallen the moment her tongue reaches out and licks at his lips. A groan pulls itself out of him, forcing him to decide just how damned he is feeling tonight. 

The fading sun shows Arya’s flushed cheeks and her kiss swollen lips, her heaving chest crushed against his. The shy grin on her face is what draws him back in, that simply joyful expression he wants to keep on her face forever. He leans in again, closing his eyes this time, only to crack his forehead into Arya’s as she does the same.

A beat passes, then two, then a laugh bubbles up that he is helpless to hold in. Arya is giggling in his lap, clutching at him in desperation as she starts to slip away in her hysterics. Grasping onto her tightly, he keeps his grip on her waist as he hauls her back to sit more securely across his thighs. They both settle, a thousand thoughts flying through his mind at once.

“So…”

“So…” 

Neither of them can contain the giddy, beaming smiles of their faces, so rather than try to speak again, Gendry leans in, cautiously this time, and bumps his nose against hers. Arya snickers again before doing it right back. Sure in his actions once more, he leans in to taste her lips, lets himself get lost in her touch.

He keeps one arm around her hips, the other diving into the curly mess of her hair, wrecking the pair of braids he’d put there this morning. Arya sighs against his mouth, then sucks his bottom lip into her own, drawing it between her teeth as she pulls away with a grin. She lets him go, but immediately tips her head back towards him, pecking him lightly and resting her forehead against his.

Her eyes are closed as she nuzzles closer. Gendry can barely bear to let himself do the same, too afraid she’ll disappear in a puff of smoke when he reopens them. As they both calm and come back to their senses, Arya tentatively reaches for the hand still grasping her waist. Weaving their fingers together, she stares up at him with pale eyes.

“Are we okay?” And she sounds so unsure, as if he would ever actually turn her away, as if this wasn’t a dream he’d long thought impossible. 

“Of course we’re okay. That will never change,” he whispers into her sweet smelling hair, lightly pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “But maybe, we can change? Be more?” The bastard blacksmith from Flea Bottom would be appalled at how familiar he is being with a highborn lady, but that at least is a part of himself he is glad to have shed. The Gendry of right now wishes for nothing more than to explore this new side of their relationship, to find that fleeting happiness he’d always wished for with Arya by his side.

His wild girl sits up taller in his lap, one of her hands carding through his hair to rest along his jawline. “I would like that.” She bends forward, every curve of her fitting snugly against him, like they were made as two pieces of one whole. This kiss is sweet and sure and a vow of a beautiful future. Pulling back for only a moment, she sighs into his mouth. “I would like that very much.” 

They stay like that for hours as the sun sets, murmuring promises into skin with giddy smiles and hazy eyes. They do little more than kiss, content to go slow and learn every inch of each other in due time. Later, she will sleep in the bed and he on the floor, but closer now, near enough that they may nod off with hands carefully clasped.

* * *

One day Gendry asks her to close up the shop a few hours early, while he quickly washes off the soot and sweat of the day. He comes back just before she finishes, pulling the broom from her hand and spinning her towards their personal rooms. With a kiss to her hand and a swat to her arse, he tells her to dress pretty and then meet him back there as soon as she is done.

Bemused, she lets herself be manhandled. Changing out of her breeches and nearly threadbare tunic, she hurriedly swipes herself clean before digging out the soft chemise and dress she’d bought on a whim a week ago. It was one she could lace on her own, with delicate lace framing a low neckline she’d never have imagined she could pull off in her younger years. 

Slipping the clothes on, she ties off the front, making sure everything sits correctly on her slim frame. She fixes the flyaway strands of her hair, pinches some color into her cheeks, and hops her feet into the dainty shoes she’d yet to wear. 

Arya may not have been able to see what she looked like, hadn’t been able to for probably almost a year, but she felt pretty. Her hair was falling in silky curls, longer than it had been in years, and the merchant had said the blue of the dress would look perfect with her coloring. 

And best of all, wherever they were going, she would be with Gendry. Gendry, who touched her like she was made of gold and silver, who murmured how lovely he thought she was when he managed to make her blush. Gendry, who she’d loved as a girl loved her only friend in the world and she loves as a woman loves a man. Gendry, who was and is and always would be, her family. 

She walks out of their quarters and hears a sharp intake of breath to her left. As she turns, one of his work roughened hands reaches for her shoulder, steadying her suddenly unsure feet as she finds herself enfolded in his arms. 

For once, Gendry smells of soap and fresh air, the ever present hints of metal and soot hidden beneath his attempts at cleanliness. His shirt is one she’s never felt before, unwrinkled and flat against his broad chest, no snags or tears along the high collar like there usually are when he forgets that his clothes don’t stretch as easily as he does. Lifting a hand to his face, she strokes a jaw devoid of stubble, something she can only barely remember from a time before Braavos, before the Brotherhood, maybe even before Harrenhal. His hair is damp and curling, though he’s pushed the front away from his eyes. Overall, she’s sure he looks quite different, but all she feels is a tension as he holds himself still for her perusal, though one unlike his stiffness when he is reminded of the Red Woman. No, this seems more like the stress he used to feel when their difference in class was mentioned. 

Arya takes half a step back and cocks her head at him, considering how she can make him feel more comfortable. “This is new, right? I don’t remember you ever wearing that tunic around me before.”

“Yes,” he says, voice strained and drawn out, like he’s unsure of where she is going with this line of thought. Gendry shifts his weight back and forth, barely enough to cause the floor to shift, but she hears it anyways. Those are new shoes too, not the same work boots he wears day in and day out at the forge. And it’s nice, the idea that he’s put in this much effort for a night with her, but not if he’s feeling awkward in his own clothes.

“You’re standing like you feel ridiculous.”

“I do not look ridiculous, I’m just not used to dressing like this.” He sounds offended, but more like himself in any case, so perhaps she only needs to push him a bit farther. 

“Like what, precisely?” Hands on her hips with an eyebrow raised, she does her best impression of the way Sansa used to look when she expected an answer for whatever nonsense she’d found out about. 

Gendry huffs, and his arms brush against her chest as he crosses them over his own. “Like I belong next to you.”

Confused, she gives up on her attempts at cool control, and lets her curiosity color her question. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean!” he explodes, a hand reaching for her own even as he gestures emphatically with the other at her. “You look all gorgeous and I always just look like me, a dirty blacksmith, and I guess I just wanted people to believe that you were actually mine for once.” He calms again, self deprecation leaking into his confession. “I see the way people look at us, like they can’t figure out how we fit together. For one night, I just wanted to feel like someone you could be proud to call you own.” 

“Oh Gendry…” she trails off, sure the blush in her cheeks is blindingly red at this point, a sappy little smile on her face. “You do realize that is easily the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.” She softens the verbal blow by going up on her tiptoes to kiss him, an arm around his neck as the other musses his carefully combed hair. Once it is thoroughly back in its normal state, she pulls away with a wet smack of lips. “I fell in love with that dirty blacksmith, so even you aren’t allowed to speak badly of him.”

Dazed, he stutters, “You, Arya, I love you too,” before swooping in. He keeps repeating her name, peppering kisses all over her face with every murmured  _ “Arya.” _ It begins to tickle, so she yanks him back to her mouth with a laugh, staggering backwards until she finds the table she typically talks to customers at, hopping up easily while never disconnecting from Gendry’s lips. He comes to stand between her spread legs, one hand tracing patterns up and down her waist as the other cradles her neck. When it starts to sneak backwards into her carefully crafted hairstyle, her own darts up to grab it.

“Ah ah ah, no messing up my hair, not if you still intend to go anywhere this evening,” she chastises with a smirk, his pout against her hairline almost enough to break her.

Whining like a little kid, he dips down to knock her nose with his. “So you’re allowed to make mine a wreck, but I can’t even play with yours? That hardly seems fair.” 

“Well I’m not the one who decided to slick it all back. I can’t even see it, and I know it looked silly. You’ll feel more like you this way. And,” she adds, moving her hands to his throat, undoing the top few buttons on his shirt, letting the top of his chest peek out, “there, that’s better too.”

“But, I thought…”

“What, that I would want you to play dress up tonight? Gendry, I merely want you to feel relaxed and enjoy whatever it was you were so excited about earlier.” She smiles up at him, just trying to ease whatever embarrassment or irritation remains. 

“Alright, I just…”

“Oh shush and don’t make me kick your ass. I would hate to ruin this lovely dress.” She flutters the material a little, flashing her ankles and knees at him with a playful kick. He still sighs again, so deciding to forgo her pride and tease him just a tiny bit more, she drags her lips and then her fingers along his jaw before sliding down from the table, plastered to the front of him. Eyes hooded, she whispers, “And for the record, I quite like the way your beard normally is,” as she glides around him, turning his head to follow her as she goes.

She can almost feel his smirk as he snarks back at her, “Duly noted, m’lady,” before grabbing her hand from his face and escorting her out the door, taking care to lock up behind them. He leads them through the twisting streets, only pausing a time or two, to confirm their directions she assumes. The smell of spices intensifies, as does the noise of an energetic crowd. 

Arya squeezes his hand once in question, checking in on him, but he simply loops it over her head and draws her closer. Leaning down, he whispers in her ear about all the options for food here that he can name, insisting she pick whatever she like. 

Lighting up when she hears a somewhat familiar voice, she tows him over towards a woman she’s spoken with often at the market near the forge, the one who likes to speak about her grandchildren with so much love and indulgence, and was always willing to lend an inexperienced cook some kind advice. 

A weathered hand reaches for hers, and the woman begins to jabber in Braavosi, asking how she has been, what their plans are for dinner, if there has been any new developments for her. The last question is asked as a curious hand brushes lightly against her stomach and Arya turns beet red at the insinuation. She’s just glad Gendry is still learning the tongue, even after years here he was useless at talking about anything other than metalwork. He excelled at that and at cursing, because one can never learn enough swear words. 

Marta takes pity on her, and directs her over to a stall selling the most heavenly scented meat, though not before whispering that she was still anxiously waiting to hear how Arya had managed to snag the most handsome blacksmith in Braavos. Without giving an answer beyond a sunny smile, she drags Gendry away, laughing to herself with glee and intent on sharing Marta’s appreciation with him later, at the most inopportune moment she could conjure.

While they wait in line, Gendry stands right behind her, his chest brushing her back with every breath. His fingers draw tiny circles on her hips, slowly driving her mad until she has to hold them still with her own, causing him to chuckle into her hair. Rolling her eyes, she elected to ignore him for the time being, pretending the pleasant curling in her gut was just hunger for the delicious smelling pork, and not the man crowding her personal space. 

Finally having obtained their dinner, Gendry takes the lead again, guiding her to an amphitheater filled with the hum of quiet anticipation. He helps her arrange her dress so she can sit properly, then reclines beside her as they eat the savory kabobs she’d ordered for them.

“So what are we doing here?”

“Heard about this from Eros, he said every few moons a bunch of bards and performers put on a big show here for the common people. I thought it might be fun, I remembered you always liked to listen to the bards back in the Riverlands, and I know you can’t watch this like everyone else, but it’s not like I can see much back here either.” In her mind’s eye, she can picture the way he’s awkwardly running a hand back through his hair. “I guess I just wanted an evening outside of the forge, when we could be like any other couple.”

She’s touched by all the thought he’s obviously put into this night, placing her hand over his where it sat between them. “That sounds perfect, thank you Gendry.” Snuggling into his side, they don’t have to wait long before the first group comes out, a group from Lys if her ears are correct about their accents. They begin with a raucous tune, the tale of a battle fought long ago in the foundation of the free city, of revolution, and creating a new home in a world turned upside down. Their next is slower, a haunting melody in their own language that she can’t understand, but loves anyways. On and on the singers go, songs melting into one another as the various performers take their turns. 

They pass hours like that, doing naught but listening to animated drinking songs and melancholy ballads, just enjoying each other’s company. As the concert is coming to a close, Gendry pulls her to her feet gently, letting her rest back in his arms, warm and relaxed as his fingers doodle abstract shapes around her stomach.

It’s the perfect night, and the fact that he’d planned this specifically so she wouldn’t feel left out, it does something to that fire coiling in her belly, the one that only ever burns because of him.

Their walk home passes so much more quickly than the one there, hands clasped and swinging in time with their matched pace. Neither says a word, satisfied with simply being together and breathing in the night air, the cool breeze off the seas winding its way through the streets. 

When they reach their own door, Arya stops him just before he unlocks it. Turning him towards her, she pushes up on her toes to kiss him deeply as he gasps in surprise, nearly dropping the key in his haste to wrap his arms around her waist. It’s a warm glide of tongues as they stand there and let the world melt away. 

Finally forcing herself to pull back, they remain tangled together in the doorway as they catch their breaths, clutching at each other, neither willing to release the other just yet. “Thank you, again,” she says, stroking along the back of his head. It’s times like these when she really, truly misses her sight the most, just so she could see exactly what he is thinking right now. “I had a wonderful time.”

He tucks a curl behind her ear, and she can feel his smile on her lips. “I’m glad.” He kissed her again lightly and drew back, so focused on her that a sparkling heat races down her spine. “Do you want to—”

“Yes,” she responds immediately, impatience forbidding her from letting him complete his sentence.

“—go inside?” he finishes with a laugh. Unlocking the door with one hand, he pulls her inside with the other, where she throws herself back at him, attacking him with her mouth.

The extra bulk of her skirt twists unexpectedly between them and he nearly trips as he turns, trying to pin her to the wall but ending up knocking their heads together. Dazed, she brings a finger to her lip, where it bleeds from catching on his teeth. The silence stretches, almost to the point of discomfort, when he starts to laugh, low and happy next to her ear. Relieved, she giggles, both at their own absurdity and the way his stubble tickles her sensitive skin.

“You know, I think I prefer the breeches,” he muses, wiping away the blood from her mouth. He leans in to kiss her again, slower this time, so slow it feels like they’re moving through honey as he lowers her to lay on the bed. It’s a different passion than the bright and happy giggles of only a moment ago, this one deeper, lasting, the kind that Arya saw in her mother and father, the kind she’d never dreamed of having for herself as a child. When he releases her lips, instead of backing away to let her get up and start to get ready for bed like she assumed he would, he moves down her neck, pressing his wet mouth against her pulse point as he hovers over her.

Her whole body shudders deeply in pleasure as he adds his teeth and nips at her collarbone, a low, desperate moan working its way out of her mouth. Gendry pulls up abruptly, stopping in his tracks at the noise. Fumbling around for his shoulder, she nestles her hand in the curve of his neck, trying to make sure he can see her and she can feel him. 

“Hey, hey, Gendry, it’s me, it’s just me,” she tries to reassure him, to bring him back to her and the present, mentally cursing the red witch to every hell she can think of. She runs a hand down the back of his neck, a gesture that normally serves to turn him to putty in her hands even in the midst of a flashback. Tonight, he just struggles from her touch, alarming her even farther. “Gendry, it’s Arya, we’re in Braavos, in our forge. She can’t reach you here, I promise.”

But it’s like he can’t hear her. Panic in his voice, he withdraws in a flash, “Gods, Arry, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you, please!” he babbles, trying to pull himself entirely out of her reach. Frantic, she sits up and tugs at his hands, determined to cure his frenzy, if only for a moment so she can console whatever trauma their actions have wrought. She wins their struggle, and he winds up sprawled half on top of her, face just above her own as he pants harshly. 

“Darling, I’m right here, you didn’t hurt me, I swear.” 

“You were shaking, I scared you. I swear, I never meant to scare you Arya.” Horror washes over her as she realizes what exactly had caused this. Slowly, carefully, she positions his head so there is no way for him to avoid looking at her now.

He’s trembling between her palms, and there’s a wetness dripping from his cheeks. “Oh Gendry, no. No, I wasn’t scared, you could never scare me.” His head shakes, and brushing a thumb to his brow she can tell his eyes are clenched shut. “Love, I need you to look at me. Please Gendry.” 

Out of words, she tries to project all the love and trust she’s always felt for him outwards, praying he can read it on her face and in the way she touches him. With a final whimper, he collapses on top of her, head hiding in her neck as he lets all the tension seep out of his body. Her hands run up and down his back, massaging away the remembered pain as best she can. 

It could be hours or it could be minutes before he stops trembling and lifts his weight from on top of her, settling so they remain curled together on the narrow bed. They lie facing one another, bodies flush as his arms wind back around her hips and her hands continue to caress him. Falteringly, she asks him, “What did I do that made you think you were hurting me?”

“You were shaking, like I was, after she…” and while he doesn’t finish his sentence, she can easily figure out the rest. Her heart breaks for him, that something as simple as her shivering in pleasure could ever make him think he was anything like that witch. 

Resolved, she cups his face in her hand as she tells him, “Gendry, you made me feel so good that I couldn’t control myself, couldn’t contain everything you make course through my veins. So I promise, you didn’t hurt me, you did the exact opposite.” Smiling softly, she runs a thumb over his bottom lip. “Nothing you do to me could ever be bad, I enjoy every second of it.”

She finally feels his mouth turn up into the smallest of grins. They lay there for so long her eyes grow heavy and breathing deep, just a few moments from sleep when he starts to pull away. Instinctively, she reaches for him, hand catching in his as he tries to sit up. “Noooo,” she grumbles, too comfortable even in her dress to want him to move a muscle. “Stay.” 

And then she blinks rapidly, because she just ordered him to do something she knows he’s not ready for yet. “Oh gods, Gendry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” A warm hand covers her mouth, stopping her hasty apology in its tracks.

“Yes,” he says, a certainty in his voice she would think false if she didn’t have a hand over his heartbeat. “Yes, I’d like to stay. I think,” he sighed. “I think it’s time to release whatever hold she had on me and live our lives as our own. And I would like to share a bed with the woman I love, if she is agreeable to it.”

“You know I am.” Arya leans over to kiss him, nothing more than an affectionate peck. Quirking her brow, she teases him to lighten the serious mood that had infected their wonderful night. Affecting the voice she’d always used to mock her sister, she pretends to swoon against him, crooning, “And you know all I plan to do is sleep, right? There shall be no funny business happening this night, you’ve exhausted me far too much with your music performances and walking all over town to even contemplate compromising my virtue.”

“Oh ha bloody ha,” he drawls, poking her precisely in the ticklish spot on her ribs, the one he will only use against her when she’s being particularly annoying. Squirming away, she laughs, joy at this return to their typical form relieving her more than anything else. He rises once more, actually making it off the bed again before he speaks. “Now if m’lady would prefer, she can always sleep in her dress or I can always help her out of it.” 

“Well, if you’re offering…” Standing so they are chest to chest, she shows him the best way to loosen her dress enough that she can slip it off without having to pull out every lace. In naught but her shift, she blinks up at him, letting him look his fill before moving to their trunk for her nightclothes. He’s across the room, undoubtedly turned around so that she can have her privacy, even here in the dark. Happily donning one of his old, well worn tunics, she folds the dress and packs it away for another day, too expensive and feminine to be worn around the shop. She can hear him moving behind her, changing into his own sleep wear before he joins her by the trunk to stow his finer things. 

Together, they return to the bed and after a minor disagreement about who will have which side, arrange themselves so Arya is closer to the door. Lying side by side on their backs, she’s forced to admit he had been right that first night when he told her they wouldn’t both fit on this cot. One of her legs is dangerously close to dangling off, but she’s determined to give him all the space she can afford. She’s convinced him to share the bed, she won’t press him any further.

Gendry is the one to exhale loudly and pull her closer, flipping them both onto their sides so he can curl around her back. In this position, she’s overwhelmed by the warmth that radiates from his bare chest, the heat of his arms seeping into her as he wraps one over her hips and tucks the other under her head. Cautiously, she delicately lays her own arm on top of his, lacing the fingers of their hands together where they lay on her stomach. The other she fists under her cheek, nails brushing his arm with every breath. Never in her life has she felt more cared for, more safe than in this moment.

Arya can feel his chest rumbling as he asks, “Is this okay?”

“Of course.” She would have been the one to suggest this, except, “I just thought…” 

“Your virtue is plenty safe m'lady, I’m just cuddling you.” He may be avoiding the obvious issue, but he seems happy enough as he inhales deeply, and if she didn’t know any better she’d think he was scenting her like a wolf. Lips press into her hair as he settles in, and soon his quiet snores blow into her neck. Closing her eyes, she snuggles in close and sleeps soundly, no dreams of the past or future disturbing her, just a bone deep contentedness she’s never felt before.

In the morning they wake with Arya’s freezing cold toes squished between his legs and blush on both of their cheeks when her backside brushes the arousal he was deliberately trying to ignore with her lying in his arms. Turning in his embrace, she kisses him once before getting up to start the day. 

Gendry lays there for another moment and groans, sounding so utterly put upon she giggles and throws a clean shirt at him. As he passes to go light the forge fire, he runs a hand down her arm and checks her lightly with his hip. Despite her surprised yelp, she knows she could wake up in this manner for the rest of her life and be the happiest woman in Braavos.

* * *

It’s one of those nights when neither of them can sleep, scrunched together as they are in their tiny bed and the muggy midnight air surrounding them. She’s telling him a story about one of the many feasts her father had held at Winterfell when she was a girl, about how her older brothers (Robb, Jon, she even counted Theon in this story) had taken turns swinging her around the dance floor, her feet barely touching the ground. 

She giggles into his chest as she recalls how Bran, stubborn as any Stark and all of five years old, had done his best to do the same, but ended up collapsing in the middle of the hall when he couldn’t lift his sister’s feet from the ground without her leaping in assistance. 

Arya’s voice grows quiet and her fingers stop their absentminded explorations when she mentions her father’s laughter echoing from the high table, how he shooed Bran back to his mother just as a slow song had begun, an old ballad every true Northerner knew. He’d offered her his hand, and lifted her tiny little feet onto his when she’d shyly protested that she didn’t know these steps. She stutters on the last few words, drifting off into a long silence that could either mean she’s finally falling asleep, or she’s waiting for him to so she can cry alone. 

Instead, Gendry tilts her chin up so she’s no longer hiding in his collarbone, and softly asks her, “Well m’lady, would you want to dance with this poor bastard?” as he strokes one hand soothingly across her hips. 

In the dark of the night, all he can see is the flash of her smile before she stills, hesitantly reminding him, “But there’s no music.” 

He snorts as he pulls her to her feet, because that is the easiest problem she’s ever put in front of him to solve. “Arry, not all of us grew up in castles with a bard to play on command. That’s why we have our own voices. Besides,” he says, taking her hand gently in his as he guides her feet to lightly rest upon his own, “I can think of at least one song we both know.” 

Clearing his throat, he tried to stick to the melody, hazy in his mind, as he sings, “My featherbed is deep and soft, and there I’ll lay you down.” 

She smiles against his chest, pressing a light kiss to the bare skin before joining in. “I’ll dress you all in yellow silk, and on your head a crown. For you shall be my lady love and I shall be your lord.” 

Gendry grips her waist tighter, hauling her up so she’s plastered to his front. Tilting his mouth directly to her ear, he rumbles, “I'll always keep you warm and safe—”

“—and guard you with  _ my _ sword,” Arya interjects, leaning back with an eyebrow raised in challenge.

Grinning, he shakes his head, squeezing her hips as he continues to sing, “And how she smiled and how she laughed,  the maiden of the tree.” Surprising her, he swings her outward, twirling her around with nothing but moonlight to guide him. Towing her back into his arms, pecks her lips before starting the next line. “ She spun away and said to him,  no featherbed for me.”

“I'll wear a gown of golden leaves,  and bind my hair with grass,” she sings sweetly, stroking along the back of his neck. “ But you can be my forest love,  and me your forest lass.” Coming to a standstill, she blew some of her escaped hair away from her face. “Or smithy lass? Forge lass? Which would be correct, do you think?” Linking her hands behind his head, she smirks up at him impishly.

“Gods, you’re terrible.” Snorting, Gendry hoists her over his shoulder, ignoring her shrieks of laughter as he whirls around in a circle until his head feels as light as his heart. Collapsing to their bed in a heap, they lie there to catch their breath, limbs tangled and clothes mussed. 

Readjusting so she is straddling his lap, she bends to kiss him, warm mouth slowly working him into a state of pure bliss. Just before he is ready to flip her over and turn the tables, she pulls away, biting her lip. “Thank you,” she breathes against his lips, so quietly he almost thinks he imagined it.

“For what?”

“For being you, for loving me, for any one of a million reasons. Just, thank you.”

“Anytime.” He kisses her one last time before he drops off into sleep, a satisfied smile still on his face.

* * *

Laying in the steaming baths of Braavos one slow afternoon, Arya lets her mind wander. In these months since she and Gendry had become, well, whatever they had become, she’s gained an intimate knowledge of her blacksmith. She has mapped his features with her hands the same way she once knew the walls of Winterfell. Somehow, Gendry is now her home, her safety in the storm that has become her life. What she wouldn’t give to see him once more, just the chance to see the brilliantly blue eyes she remembers flashing in anger and sparkling in humor. 

She misses the way they used to speak without words, when she could look at his face and know every thought in his mind after only a moment. They’ve learned to do the same through touch, the brush of a hand against a shoulder, the tap of fingers on a wrist. It may not be the same, yet it is theirs, and that makes it precious. 

But those thoughts are too serious for her bathtime daydreams. Instead she refocuses on the way his skin feels under her curious fingers, the shifting of his ever tense muscles when she brushes his arms or chest. She pretends the water caressing her skin is Gendry’s touch, sending sparks up and down her spine whenever his nails graze just the right spot to make her shiver.

Closing her eyes is pointless in her ever present darkness, but Arya does anyways, losing herself in her own fantasy as her questing fingers reach down to stroke between her thighs, imagining they are longer, thicker, calloused from working with a hammer rather than handling a sword. Phantom lips trace along her neck, as do the tingling sensations across her back when she thinks of his arms around her, surrounding her, supporting her against his solid chest in the soapy bathwater. Picturing what she thinks is his face in her mind, she arches into the slick heat, desperately chasing that edge into oblivion, but gods help her if it remains just out of reach. 

Frustrated, she huffs and attempts to blow at the sweaty strands of her hair afrom where they are plastered to her face. She heaves herself out of the bath, annoyed and aroused with no way to cure either of those conditions. Drying off quickly, she dresses in her clean clothes and leaves the baths, letting the attendant know she has finished early and that her stall is now open.

It’s a short walk home, and even as she stomps her way there, she can’t help but fantasize about Gendry and his stupidly strong arms and his indecently smart mouth and everything about him that she loves. It’s rather obnoxious how even as irked as she is, the lovesick smile on her face can’t be wiped away.

She arrives at their shop door, intent on convincing Gendry to let her go a few rounds with one of the swords in the back when she hears the squealing and tittering laughs of the local tavern girls. They always seem to travel in packs, especially the younger ones that like to crowd the shop for a glimpse of Gendry and his muscles. The girls never pay her any mind, treating her as little more than an obstacle there to inconvenience their ogling. While Gendry has never outright stated how uncomfortable they make him, he is always reluctant to enter the front of the shop for real customers whenever they are there. 

And she has left him all alone with these harpies.

Suddenly feeling more than a little possessive and protective of her bull, Arya swings the door open wildly and stalks in, gauging that there are three girls and where they are, leaning against  _ her _ bloody table as they attempt to flirt with Gendry. Previously smiling mouth now set firmly in a scowl, Arya clears her throat. Loudly.

The chirping stops abruptly as they all shuffle, presumably to stare at the intruder. She arches an eyebrow and hears Gendry give a relieved exhale before escaping into his forge. Crossing her arms, she asks as politely as she can manage if she can help them find anything, and when none can give her an immediate answer, ushers them out the door without a thought, informing them the blacksmith had decided to close early that day. Amidst their protests, she smiles with all of her teeth before slamming the door closed and locking it.

Though he may be slightly annoyed for the lost hour of business, Arya imagines Gendry would most likely be more grateful for the intervention than anything else. Keeping her steps just loud enough for him to hear, she walks back to the forge, listening for the hammer she is sure will be banging away already. Instead, he is waiting for her, so still and silent she runs into him as he leans on the wall.

“Shit, sorry!” he blurts out as he catches her, pulling her upright and propping her against his chest. Laughing at her own uncharacteristic clumsiness, she waves off his apologies, enjoying the closeness as the tension of earlier melts away.

“It’s fine, I was just coming to check on you.” Arya loops her arms around his waist and tips her chin up to rest on this sternum. His own are caught at her hips, though the one seems to have begun to wander.

Gendry bends down to place a light kiss on her lips, pulling away with a smile. “I’m okay, but thank you for getting rid of them. They’re kind of,” he stops, searching for the correct word, “a lot? And rather oblivious to the fact that I have no intention of ever taking anyone of them up on their offers, not when I have you right here.” She knows he’s grinning again, that self-satisfied smirk he gets when he knows he’s right and she can’t complain, because then she would be wrong and he would  _ win _ .

Rather than start a verbal spar she doesn’t care to lose, she yanks his head down to hers, kissing that stupid smirk away and letting herself sink into him until all the world outside his arms no longer exists. Gendry gives as good as he gets, all notions of shyness between them lost as they’ve grown together, so when he opens his mouth to plunder her own, she enjoys every minute of it.

He must grow tired of the angle his head is at, because suddenly she is lifted into the air by powerful hands under her thighs. Turned around so now her back is to the wall inside the forge, Gendry fits himself between her opened legs, letting them drape over his hips as he stands so close she can feel every inch of his heaving torso.

Pulling her mouth from his for a moment, she checks to make sure he is still comfortable, “You good?” At his fervent nod that almost knocks their heads together painfully, she ducks back in, trusting Gendry to know his own limits. One of her hands trails down his chest from the back of his head, playing with the buttons that hide his skin from her touch. When he leans away rather abruptly, she assumes it was too much and opens her mouth to apologize, only to hear the wrenching of fabric as he does his best to tear his shirt over his head. “I hope that stayed in one piece, because you know I’m wretched at mending.”

He mutters, “Oh shut up,” before lifting her higher, sucking and biting along her neck as her nails scrabble for purchase on his back. When he finds a particularly sensitive spot, she gasps out loud, which of course makes him do it again and again until she’s a trembling mess in his arms. One of those beautifully smart hands of his is playing along the edges of her tunic and pants, skimming the skin between in a way that makes her lightheaded. 

Gendry takes a deep breath into her neck before his hand is tentatively reaching the undo the laces of her breeches, slowly pulling them apart one by one. Pausing once they’re open, he tilts his head to line up with hers, resting their foreheads together. Unconsciously, she syncs her breathing with his, her body alight with sensation, though her mind remains calm. She opens her eyes, letting him see the trust and love she has for him as she asks, “Are you sure?”

A heartbeat, then two, before breathing, “Yes.” 

And then he’s kissing her again like his life depends on it as his fingers explore her most private place, groaning into her mouth when he feels the wetness coating the insides of her thighs. She can feel him against her, his hardness making itself known near her hip as he presses her into the wall. He circles a finger around her entrance, still probing and mapping every inch of her, but her impatient arousal wins, and she begs, “Oh gods, please Gendry, please!”

He chuckles into her open, moaning mouth as he finally slips into her, gently thrusting his finger and rubbing it along her inner walls. His thumb has found her clit and is massaging it in time with his explorations inside, a rhythm sure to drive her mad in a matter of moments. Everything builds and builds, so much faster and hotter than it ever has when she does this herself, but it’s still not enough. 

Sensing her frustration, Gendry switches the pattern of movement, more of a slow grind into the heel of his palm as he adds another digit inside of her, the width of his calloused fingers stretching her deliciously. He keeps kissing her, mimicking the movements with his tongue as she finally falls, going pleasantly limp in his arms as she keens his name for anyone to hear. The only reason she doesn’t promptly slump to the ground on jelly-filled legs is him, still firmly holding her up as she straddles one of his thighs.

Coming back to herself, she cups one of his cheeks in her hand, letting her thumb brush over his softly smiling lips before tugging him in for a kiss. He returns it for a moment before pulling away, though he doesn’t go far as he takes several bracing breaths. Arya is again reminded of the erection against her leg, rock hard and digging in a little uncomfortably. She stretches a cautious hand, giving him all the time in the world to read her intentions and stop her if he should so choose. He doesn’t.

Her initial touch is light, not quite sure how she should handle this part of him. She remembers things whores have said about what men like, the way the Night’s Watch recruits were always happy to whip out their cocks on the road, no acknowledgement of her presence from anyone but Gendry who would blush violently and turn her away, even the drunken boasting of the Brotherhood’s conquests. 

But none of those overheard words apply to Gendry who, though definitely enjoying her ministrations if the sounds and tiny jerks of his hips were anything to go by, was still slightly tense. Making up her mind, Arya stops and taps at his shoulder. He sets her down, hands a little confused even as she gathers them with her own and backs towards the chair she knows sits in the corner, where she likes to sit and listen to his work while she runs calculations in her head. 

Before either of them sit, she puts a hand to his chest and asks a simple question, “Do you want me?” His protests die on his lips as she continues, “I don’t mean in general, I know you love me, but do you want me to touch you? Because we can stop right now if you want to, try again another day if this is too much.” 

Gendry doesn’t take as long to consider her question as she expects, barely even gives it a moment’s thought before he drags her in for a deep kiss. Pulling away, he whispers, “Thank you, that you’re even asking is…” She can feel him shrug, then carry on, saying, “I want this, I do. I guess I’m just not sure how?”

“We can figure it out together,” she kisses him sweetly, “we always do.” Looking down, she can feel the blush creeping into her cheeks as she mutters, “It’s not as if I’ve ever done this before either, so I doubt it will be all that good.”

Lifting her chin, he curves his hand along the side of her face as he places a loving kiss to her forehead. “It’s you, of course it will feel good.” He drops his grip to her waist, and he sits heavily in the chair, pulling her between his spread legs. She moves her hands to his laces, loosening them just enough to reach inside.

At her first touch, he inhales sharply before nodding again where his head rests on her chest. She traces her fingers up and down his length, trying to learn as much as she can by touch alone. She’s never done this before, she’d said that, but it feels so very different from the soft, smaller flesh she’d washed in the House. This feels powerful, and the idea of that piece of him one day being inside of her makes her cunt wet once more.

Feeling braver, she wraps her hand around him and begins to stroke, letting the skin slide in her grasp as he groans into her neck. A bead of moisture gathers at the tip, which she takes to work back into his skin, the slickness letting her move faster and grip firmer as Gendry starts to rut into her hand. 

Knowing he is enjoying this, her curious and bold side wins out, and she reaches for his trousers, pushing them down farther to free him completely before falling to her knees. Whilst she’s paused her fondling in favor of getting his pants out of the way, one of his hands comes to cradle her face as he tells her, “You don’t have to do that Arya, this feels better than I could ever imagine.”

“Do you want me to stop?” she asks, doing her best not to sound disappointed.

But he snorts, rubbing a thumb to her cheekbone. “Hell no, this is the best thing I’ve ever experienced, but you have to want it too.”

Propping herself on her knees, she kisses his mouth quick and sure, a smile on her lips as she reaches for his cock again. “I’d like to know what it’s like then, just tell me what feels good.” She pumps him twice, leaning down to put her lips around the head and sucks lightly.

An anguished whine is her answer, and a stuttered lifting of his hips as they chase the contact when she backs away. She tilts her head to glare at him, because as much as she wants this, she would prefer not to choke on his dick her first time. With a muttered “ _ sorry _ ,” she feels one of his hands reach to pull back her fallen hair as the other grips onto the creaking chair. 

She tries again, this time letting her tongue swirl around him, her hand working his length as she goes. The taste is a bit salty, but that at least she’d expected based on the whore’s talk. It’s not wholly unpleasant, just strange. She pulls off and kisses her way down his cock, moving to lightly fondle his balls as her nose reaches the coarse hair at his groin. He lets out another, louder groan, and she focuses on him, momentarily ignoring his pulsing length in her hands.

“What, was something wrong?”

“No, you’re just going to kill me with that mouth of yours,” he grouses.

Smirking, she licks his tip again, this time expecting the little stutter that follows. “Now why would I do that? 

“Arya, that’s just,  _ oh gods _ ,” she takes him back into her mouth, sucking hard around the head. The hand in her hair clenches as he moans, “That’s so good Arya, that feels amazing.”

Carefully, she moves farther down his cock, taking more of him between her lips until she feels him hit the back of her throat. She starts to bob up and down his length, letting the noises he makes guide her. Soon, they grow closer, more fervent, until all he can say is her name between a smattering of swear words.

She pulls off of him, deciding she’d rather he spill in her hand than her mouth, at least this time. Tugging only a few more times, he jerks forwards and comes across her palm as she pulls him into a hungry kiss. Blindly reaching for one of the rags she knows is hung on the wall, she cleans her hand before moving to straddle his lap, losing herself in his touch. 

“So apparently I did well?” she jokes, as they pause to catch their breath. 

He sighs into her mouth, shaking his head a little before laughing. “I love you endlessly. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I was more than happy to give you some new memories.” She moves to get up, but his arms wrap around her waist tighter, hugging her close. “Some of us worked up an appetite and would like to eat dinner soon.”

“I know,” Gendry whispers into her ear, “but I’d like to just hold you for a moment, if that’s okay.” Rather than answer with words, she readjusts to loop her arms around his shoulders, tucking her head beneath his chin. The quiet of the forge settles around them, and despite her ever present darkness, the future seems brighter than ever before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like there will be yelling after this chapter because of what I put these characters through. And I would apologize for any emotional pain inflicted on readers at this time, but I’m not sorry. ¯\ _(ツ)_/¯
> 
> (Also I promise the last chapter is (mostly) fluffier than a microwaved marshmallow)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return of a familiar face brings about a change in Arya and Gendry's relationship. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is the end of this story, so I would like to say thank you to everyone who's made it here with me. I know this wasn't a light story, so I appreciate you guys for sticking with me. The beginning wraps up a thread left dangling, but for the most part this is fluffy as hell. And smutty. Because reasons. Actually it may be more smutty than fluffy, because they started getting dirty and it was kind of hard to stop them.
> 
> Flemoncake made another beautiful moodboard (which keeps switching to moldboard) (Thanks autocorrect) for this, and it was such a fun collaboration. As always, all comments and questions are welcome down below.
> 
> (Also I'm technically late for my final posting date for Big Bang, whoops?)

The Waif comes for her after more than a year and a half of nothing, no signs she was being watched, no warning. And maybe in another world, one where she was still alone, maybe the result would have been different. But this is not that world, and when the Waif falls to the blade of Arya’s hidden dagger, all she has to show for her attack are a few bruises and scrapes on the pair of them. 

Arya throws herself at Gendry, trusting that he will catch her as her shaking legs wrap around his waist. Her hands scrabble over his features, prodding at the cut along his brow as he does the same to her, cataloguing every wince. He carries her back to their smithy, the bloody corpse left forgotten in the water beneath the market bridge, just another lost soul claimed by the God of Death. No one will remember her as anything but an insane woman, only the blacksmith and his woman that she had gone after unprovoked.

In their home, he tries to set her down so he can find a cloth to wipe away their wounds, but she is persistent in her desire, blood running hot on survival. Gendry tastes like copper, or maybe she does, but all Arya knows is they are both alive when the Waif is not, and she wants to spend every moment she has left with this stubborn, tenacious, bullheaded man. “Marry me,” she gasps into his mouth, not even giving him the chance to answer her demand before kissing him again like her life depends on it.

Arya misses colors. She used to take them for granted, the shades of gray and white that meant home and Winterfell and her father, the fiery red locks that meant comfort in the form of her mother or brothers, the cool greens of Riverlands grass that meant some kind of freedom. She misses the way she could tell friend from foe based solely on the color armor they wore, whose banners flew above their heads. She misses the way the world of Braavos felt so alive, the marketplace bursting with new colors and patterns she still doesn’t know the names for. She misses the crystal clear blue of Braavos’ harbor, and the pure white of a late summer snow, and the rich brown of the earth in a Godswood. 

She wishes she knew what their home looked like. She can guess, has been in enough forges to know everything by the fire is permanently covered in a thin veneer of ash, can imagine the gleam of the swords and knives and axes she helps to polish and sharpen. Their room, their bed is more of a mystery. What color is the blanket that they cuddle underneath on the nights when the sea breezes blow? Could she see water from the window next to their rickety little table?

But beyond those things, Arya misses Gendry’s blue eyes and Gendry’s black hair and Gendry’s tanned skin covered in soot. Maybe the reason she misses them most is because they’re right in front of her, never so far she cannot reach for him and know he will be by her side in an instant. She can touch and taste, hear and smell, but she’ll never see him again. 

So yes, Arya misses color. But she misses seeing the sum of all those colors even more. Especially on this that will be her wedding day, when she cannot see her almost husband’s face as he tells her that he loves her. When he wholeheartedly agrees to marry her. As soon as he’s cared for her bumps and bruises of course.

* * *

This day seemed to have lasted a lifetime and the blink of an eye, all at once. The crazed woman Arya had once fought in an alley had returned, none of the detachment Arya had said the Faceless Men were legendary for present in her snarl. 

They’d been making their way to meet with one of the braavos who frequents their shop, a lunch between friends that Gendry would have been loath to consider before Arya came back into his life. For one thing, he didn’t exactly have anyone he would consider a friend in Braavos before he found Arya, and for another, he had never been the most sociable of men to start off with. Hands clasped as they walked, he was so focused on her sunny smile and the animation in Arya’s voice that he never hears her coming.

But Arya does, and she shoves him out of the way, ducking under the knife aimed for his heart, only to whip around and freeze. From his place on the ground, he can see the way she tilts her head, listening for a sign of the attacker, and braces herself. The daggers he’d made her remain out of sight in her sleeve and boots, her hands instead curling into loose fists. Gendry gets to his feet, but remains crouched down, trying not to draw any attention to himself.

The woman Arya had called the Waif suddenly barrels through the startled crowd, lunging for Arya with a guttural yell. She doesn’t seem to have another knife out, focused only on hurting Arya with her bare hands. She looks frenzied, out of control as she swipes at Arya, who simply dodgers every blow, using the woman’s loud movements to guide her. But the Waif gets in a good hit, getting Arya in the head and causing her to hunch over. The woman has a bloody grin, and that is when he moves.

Gendry tackles her, rushing her like the bull he’s always been, the sight of Arya in pain making him see red. She escapes his hold, spinning away in a movement he can’t even track, brandishing another blade she’s pulled from somewhere. All of her focus is on him now, as she backs him up onto the bridge, swiping at him like a cat with her prey as she cries insults and anguished threats into the morning air. 

But she’s forgotten that while she may be acting alone, he and Arya are a team, and since they’ve found each other again, he’s learned to read exactly how she moves. Her footfalls lost in the panic of the crowd, Arya follows them, still not drawing a dagger even though he can see her hand hovering to do so near her sleeve.

His momentary distraction is enough for the Waif to get just close enough to strike, her small dagger biting into his upper arm. He’d turned before she could truly hurt him, nothing more than a glancing blow, but his startled yelp draws Arya back into the action.

His swift little she wolf somehow darts between them when the Waif draws back her arm, poised to stab him once more, this time in the chest. Instead, her lunge takes her right into Arya’s path, one of the daggers he’d made for her impaling itself between the ribs, straight into her heart. The Waif looks down in shock, then topples, falling into the water below.

And suddenly his arms are full of Arya, her hands tracing his features frantically, like this is the first time she’s ever touched him. Looking around, he can see people start to come closer, sure that the madwoman was gone, whether from the wound Arya had given her or drowned in the depths of the canal. Before anyone can even begin to question him, he hastily turns and nearly runs back to the smithy, Arya still clinging to him in his arms.

Time blurs into a haze of hands and lips once they’re home, a haze that comes to a startling clarity when she blurts out her question, or demand, or it may even be an order, but it is one he will happily follow. Before he can do more than blink in shock, she’s pulled him back in, thoroughly debauching his mouth. 

When he manages to pull away enough to speak, he has to ask, “Why now? Why today?” because he cannot marry her if this is nothing more than a panicked reaction.

She leans her forehead against his, breathes slowly and deeply with a determined look on her face. “Because I have lost my entire family, except for you. And I thought we had all the time in the world to live our lives as we please, but she almost cost us that. So if I die tomorrow, I don’t want to have any regrets.” Entranced in her pale gaze, he barely responds when she presses a soft kiss to his lips, whispering, “Wherever you are is my home, your arms are the safest place in my world. You hold my heart, and I don’t want to spend another day on this earth when I cannot call you my husband.”

“Yes, yes I’ll marry you. I’m yours, I always have been.” Pulling her close, he buries his face in her neck as hot tears run down his cheeks, stunned he has been blessed to call this woman his. “I love you. And yes Arya, of course I will be your husband.” 

She retreats from the hug, a beaming smile on her face as she backs away to start rummaging through their trunk. “Good, then we both need to clean up so we can go find someone to do that.”

“Do what?” Confused, he just stands there as she throws a rag at him, using it to wipe off the blood still on his forehead.

Her head pops up, the expression she’s making telling him he’s obviously missing something rather important. “Marry us, of course.”

“ _Today_?” 

“Yes, you idiot, today,” she huffs in exasperation, though he really thinks this is not the dumbest thing he’s ever said. “I meant it when I said I wanted to call you my husband immediately.” With that, she tosses his nice clothes at his head, somehow nailing him with an uncanny precision he doubts he could copy, even with his fully functioning eyesight. 

Bemused, he follows her directions around their home, preparing this and that for her approval as she also cleans and dresses, batting away his eager hands when his attempts to lace her dress prove decidedly unhelpful. Eventually, she declares them both presentable and snags a small bag of coin to take with them to the nearest temple, in case palms need to be greased in order to hold their wedding today.

Before she can drag him out the door, he stops her, instead placing a gift he had intended to give her on her next nameday in her hand. Hammered gold, he’d traded lessons with a nearby jewelry smith to make this simple little leaf pin.

Sheepishly, he tried to explain his intentions when she didn’t speak for a good minute. “I know it’s not a full gown of golden leaves, but I thought you might like a good piece of our past with you today.”

“Oh Gendry, it’s perfect.” Hand over her mouth, Arya tilts her head up, begging for a kiss he is all too happy to give her. Gently turning her around, he weaves the bottom piece through the tie of her braid, securing it so it sits comfortably in the back of her hair. Another kiss, and then they’re gone, off to start the next phase of their lives.

He’s not even sure which gods are worshipped in the temple where they are married, all he cares about is that it is not R’hllor and that they end the day married with little fuss. Though he knows Arya’s family followed the Old Gods, she seems to be of the same mind. So when she leads him towards a small stone temple several streets away, he is only a step behind.

The priest they find there is all too willing to marry them after Arya presses a few gold into his hand in apology for interrupting his afternoon prayer. He leads them both to an altar in the front, asking they bow their heads in prayer. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Gendry can see Arya’s mouth moving silently, so he closes his eyes and decides it cannot hurt to think of the gods he’d grown up with, mentally giving thanks to each of the Seven for allowing him to make it to this day and granting him the strength to keep going until he’d found Arya. A small hand reaches for his, and he laces their fingers together, giving her an excited squeeze when the priest asks them to stand and face each other.

Reciting something in a lyrical language Gendry can’t understand, the holy man walks around them in a circle, placing a pair of floral crowns on both of their heads, though he has to gesture for Gendry to bend down so he can reach. He then folds his hands, and tells them to each speak their vows to one another.

They hadn’t discussed this, hadn’t agreed what they wanted in the ceremony if they got any say in it. But he knows her heart, and she knows his, so his vows at least are simple. “I am hers, as she is mine.” A heartfelt promise for the rest of their days.

The broad grin on Arya’s face is infectious, and it grows even more so as she repeats the words back to him. “I am his, as he is mine,” she intones, before playfully adding, “I will love you through featherbeds, forests, and forges.”

Grinning back down at her, he agrees, “Through featherbeds, forests, and forges, I will always love you.” 

They both glance up at the priest, who seems more amused than anything at their words. He takes in their expectant expressions, and informs them, “And thus you are wed, in the sights of my gods and yours. Seal the marriage with a kiss.”

That is a command Gendry is all too happy to fulfill, cradling Arya’s face as they kiss until their smiles are too wide to hold in. Glancing at the priest, the man makes a shooing motion as he returns to his prayers, ignoring the young newlyweds who make their way out of his temple, giddy with love.

It’s as they walk through the doors that reality crashes back into their happy little bubble, coming in the form of a familiar man with red and white hair.

* * *

Gendry stops in his tracks the moment they exit the temple, and for a moment Arya fears the Waif wasn’t dead, that she’d somehow survived that fall into the canal and had returned to kill them. But then a voice speaks, and her blood chills for an entirely different reason.

“A man wishes a woman congratulations on her wedding day.” Though his voice sounds exactly the same, Jaqen sounds so incredibly different to her now. No longer is he a mentor figure she placed nearly on par with Syrio Forel. Now he is just a man who preyed on a lonely little girl’s fears and insecurities, before nearly ripping her apart to fit his own designs.

Standing taller, she holds a hand to Gendry’s chest, hoping his protective instincts won’t overwhelm him before she can figure out what the Faceless Man came here for. Proud of the life she’s made for herself, Arya quiets whatever doubts she has in her path and takes a step forward. “What do you want?”

“A man wished to apologize for the hurt caused by the one a woman called the Waif, as well as offer a woman back her sight.” Arya inhales sharply at his words and can hear Gendry do the same. 

Barely able to breathe as her mind whirls with the idea of having her own eyes back, she gasps, “Why?”

“A man is to blame for the Waif, for he did not realize the hate that had been growing in her heart for a woman that would cause her to go to such lengths and abandon our code.” He sounds as remorseful as a man without emotions can, and she can genuinely believe that he didn’t understand the rivalry that he’d begun to brew in the both of them, at least before Arya had found her true home outside the House.

Still, this is too great to come without some sort of price. “How do I know this isn’t a trick, revenge for killing one of your disciples?”

“The girl who lost her sight was lost in many ways. The woman before me is not, and this is the first time I meet her. A woman should accept this wedding gift and will never see a man again.” She feels him press a bottle into her hands, heavy with the implications, and then leave with nothing more than a swirl of his cloak.

For a moment, Arya wants to pop the cork and drink the contents right there in the street, but Gendry’s steady hand on her back reminds her that she could be gambling with more than just her own future, should Jaqen have been lying. So they quickly return to the forge, locking the doors tightly, all previous thoughts of how to celebrate their marriage forgotten in the wake of such a huge decision.

Pacing back and forth in their room, she argues herself into and out of drinking the potion over and over as Gendry listens to her every word. “I shouldn’t take it, should I? It could be poison. It probably is poison.” She pauses, going back over the inflections in his voices, which words Jaqen chose most carefully. “But I honestly don’t think he was lying. It didn’t sound like he was lying…” 

On and on she goes, until Gendry finally stands and grabs her shoulders, bringing her to a halt in front of him. “Arya, do you want to take this potion?” She goes to answer, but he interrupts her and says firmly, “No overthinking it for or against. Just your gut reaction: do you want to drink this?”

“ _Yes_ ,” she answers promptly, surprising even herself a little at the vehemence. 

He strokes his arms down so hold her hands with his. “Then you should drink it. You’ll drive yourself crazy with what ifs if you don’t.”

“But what about you? What if I’m wrong, and this kills me? I can’t leave you here, I would never forgive myself.” 

“Arya, I love you. I will love you if you get your sight back and I will love you if you choose not to chance it. But I know you, I know the woman I married this afternoon; would we even be having this conversation if you weren’t already sure?” She shakes her head silently, not trusting herself not to start crying because of his utter faith in her. “Then I think you should drink it and stop second guessing yourself.”

“Okay,” she sighs, caught somewhere between defeat and relief, “but I’m going to need you to kiss me first.” He doesn’t say a word, just swoops in and delivers the most searing kiss of her life, branding his touch into every pore of her being. When they part with heaving chests, she pulls him back in for another, not willing to stop touching him. 

When she finally feels brave enough to take the chance, she moves to sit on the bed with the bottle in her hands. The floor creaks as Gendry kneels in front of her, resting his palms on her knees. Opening the silly little thing is incredibly easy, just a slight twist and the liquid that could change her life is there for the drinking.

Pasting on a smirk that she doesn’t truly feel, Arya grabs her husband’s hand in hers and steels herself with a mocking, “Bottoms up!” chugging the potion in one swallow.

Nothing happens for a second, and she almost thinks Jaqen had played a trick on her when lancing pain starts to shoot through her skull. Biting back the scream that wants out, her back arches and her eyes clench tight, before she falls, limbs heavy on the straw mattress as she lets the agony pass.

Head clear, she opens gray eyes.

The first thing Arya sees in almost two years is Gendry’s face, leaning over her where she now lies on their bed. His hand stays tightly clasped in hers, his eyes somehow more blue than she remembered. His hair is dark and thick, curling against his forehead; his skin a glowing bronze so much healthier than the pallor he’d had on the run. He seems even larger to her, his arms so thick, she can barely believe it is him if she didn’t know the weight of them around her waist every night. Everything about him just seems _more_. 

As her vision fully returns, she studies him, sorting through the changes since the last time she saw him, and tries to reconcile these differences with the abstract shapes she has learned day after day, night after night with her fingers, her touch. How a man this beautiful has offered himself as hers, is _her husband_ … She smiles up at him tremulously, and a grin breaks over his face. Neither say a word, she too focused on examining every aspect of his face, he too drawn into her hypnotic gaze.

Arya reaches out slowly, hesitant to touch him for the fears that he will dissipate into smoke if she comes too close, that she will wake up back in the chilly halls of the House of Black and White. But his skin is warm and real, his stubble prickling her palm as he nuzzles into the hand caressing his face. Tracing the strong lines of his cheekbones, she relearns the contours of his smiles and the way his eyes crinkle, the dimple in his cheek she’s never noticed in all her time spent examining him. 

The way they darken from sweet cerulean to a stormy navy, that is something entirely new to her, a new kind of knowledge that sets her insides aflame. Now that she can see, everything feels new, every sensation feels a hundred fold because now she can look at him with each touch and learn him anew.

She sees the way his eyes flutter shut as her touch dances over his skin.

She sees his pulse jump in his neck as she runs her fingers through thick black hair, scraping along his scalp.

She sees the tendons move, sees his mouth gasp out a breath, sees no glimmer of hesitation as she leans more of her weight into him.

She _sees_.

She sees everything, and everything isn’t enough. She wants more, she wants it all.

As Arya sits up slowly, she keeps him close, never letting him leave her immediate space, his forehead resting against hers. Moving her hands to the back of his neck, she twists onto her knees, towering over Gendry as he kneels next to their bed. “Hello my handsome husband.”

A blinding smile lights up his face, eyes crinkling as tears form in the corners. “Hello, my lovely wife.” Then he leans in to kiss her, sweet and simple and slow, a promise of all the kisses to come in their future. Her eyes flutter closed when she falls into him, melting against his chest as her hands curl up into his hair. She wants to savor this, truly wants to just open her eyes and do nothing but look at Gendry as she relearns the shape of his face, but that will have to wait for another night. Because one kiss becomes two becomes three becomes four and suddenly they’re no longer exchanging gentle kisses but lost in an explosion of heat.

Gendry’s wide, calloused hands span her waist as he lifts her up while he stands, a tiny squeak escaping her mouth at the show of strength. She can feel the grin still pressed to her mouth, and nips at his bottom lip in retaliation, lightly tugging on it as she pulls back. Stumbling into the small table next to their bed, he groans deep and rough against her mouth, the need boiling in her veins echoing back twice over. Her dangling legs wrap tight around his waist as she dives back in, any thought of slowing down fading from her mind.

Smoothly, he pivots and deposits her on their table, clever fingers immediately starting to unlace the front of her dress. Then it’s a race to undress each other as she does the same to his shirt, whipping through the far too numerous fastenings of his nice tunic, desperate to reach the chest underneath. He finishes first, pulling her hands away from those last few stubborn ties as he tears the bodice and shift down under her breasts, lips intent on driving her insane as they explore the revealed skin. 

One hand still caught in a sleeve, she pushes him away with the other after a particularly fervent bite that sends pulses of pleasure up and down her spine while his hands work on loosening her laces further. Shuddering, she opens her eyes to glare at him again, putting a pout on his face as she bats away his hands. Sitting up straight, Arya crossed her arms across her chest, blocking his view and causing him to realize that perhaps they were not on precisely the same page. 

“Are we moving too quickly right now? Oh gods, should we slow down? I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry Arya, I just got caught up in the moment and—”

“Shhh,” she hushed him, laughing softly as she placed a finger over his babbling lips. Removing it once he was quiet, she leaned in for a short but heated kiss full of promise, drawing back slowly with hooded eyes. “I don’t want to stop, trust me, I just wanted to make sure this dress actually survives the night, as expensive as it was.”

“It would be a shame if something happened to it,” he allows, rubbing fingers up and down her sides, callouses catching on the delicate lace around the edges of her bodice. 

There’s an awe in his face as he looks at her, like he can’t believe she is real. It’s the same way she feels about him, that sense of disbelief that he is hers to love and cherish for all their days. And where this is leading just hits her all of a sudden, the gravity of their position. Smiling shyly, she asks, “We’re really doing this, this is happening?”

“I promise that I would very much like to take you to bed, wife.” He smirked as he uttered the last word, savoring the taste of such a precious title on his tongue. Rolling her eyes at his obvious enjoyment, Arya shoved at his shoulder and nimbly ducked under his arm, making a break for the bed before being caught back into his arms, her husband’s insatiable mouth immediately sucking along her collarbone. “Now where do you think you’re going?” he challenges, his baritone voice resounding in her bones. 

Her smallclothes may be sopping wet and her limbs may feel like jelly, but she wouldn’t let him win quite so easily. “The bed is right there, I was already sitting on it before you decided to pick me up.”

The sucking turns to a sharp nip as he nearly growls, “Need to get you naked first.”

“That process would go faster if you let me help.”

“Nope, been thinking about peeling you out of that dress since you put it on earlier. Want to do this myself.” 

“Well, you were taking too long,” she snarks, fully aware that she’d stopped him from ripping the dress off of her only a minute ago. “And besides, some of us would like you to be naked too.”

“That can always be arranged.” He finally whips the shirt over his head after he sets her down, and her memories absolutely had not done his broad chest justice. Her fingers know these paths, the way his muscles move under his skin, the ridges that define his abdomen, the veins along his arms. But her eyes do not, they are so incredibly curious. She could spend all day just staring at the way Gendry is put together and never grow tired. However, something tells her the bulge in her husband’s trousers means he would prefer to leave that course of action for another time. 

She meets his heated eyes with her own, crashing back together they keep pulling at each other’s clothes. Her dress finally falls, her shift and smallclothes not long after. Though her eyes would be useful in undoing the absurdly tight knots in his laces, Arya cannot tear herself away from his mouth, completely caught up in every twist of his tongue as his hands wander her naked body, deftly undoing the braids from her newly gifted hairpiece.

One of his hands goes to her now loose hair as she decides she is done with playing nice, abandoning the ties on his pants in favor of reaching for the knife that resides on her side of the bed, just in case. Her husband’s shocked “Arya,” does little to dissuade her, slicing through the strings as easily as butter. 

Looking up with a proud little grin, she almost laughs at his expression, a hilarious mix of confusion and lust. “What?”

He shakes his head a little as a matching grin forms on his face. “You are something else, you know that?” he asks rhetorically, kissing her again before she can respond.

The pants slide down with little effort now, followed by the smallclothes that barely seemed to contain his arousal. Her hands go to work, lightly tugging and wrapping around his length before she manages to tear herself away from his lips in order to look down at him. Gendry’s cock is thick and red, so long and thick that the idea of this inside of her makes her a little nervous for the first time. But only a little. Mostly she would just like to finally feel that connection with him, feel him so intimately that it would be hard to tell where she stopped and he began. Plus, if it was as pleasurable as any of the other activities they’d explored, she was sure she would enjoy it immensely.

Tilting her head, she’s immediately captured in his heated gaze, those blue eyes of his nearly black with desire. Holding their stare, she circles the head of his cock with her hand, feeling the moisture gathering at his tip.

Biting her lip, she chokes out, “We should—”

“—the bed,” he cuts her off, practically dragging her into a kiss before lowering her to lay on her back. Gendry covers her body with his own, every inch of skin pressed together tightly. As they continue to kiss, one of his hands trails down her body, stopping to pluck at her nipple, cup her arse, before reaching her cunt. 

She knows she’s wet, knows she’s wanted him so badly since she’d first opened her eyes to see his own staring back at her. But still, she gasps when he runs assessing fingers through her folds, pinching her clit, circling her entrance. 

Arching into him, Arya moans into his mouth when he takes pity and enters her, touch so much more sure than it was the first time they’d tried this months ago. He strokes into her gently at first and rubs along her inner walls, each movement driving her closer and closer to the edge. Incoherently, she gasps his name when he adds a second digit and then a third, stretching her and turning her world upside down with pleasure. 

When Gendry finds that elusive, amazing spot inside of her that he says is just the tiniest bit rougher to the touch, she can feel him grin against her neck. She’s lost in sensation as he scrapes a fingernail against it, vision turning white when he repeats the motion again and again, throwing her into a mindblowing orgasm.

Coming down from that high, Arya finds her husband propped up so he hovers over her with a self-satisfied grin, his cock heavy and hard where it rests on her stomach. One hand cups his cheek and brings him to her lips as the other reaches down the wrap around his length, running up and down it a few more times to make sure he is ready. 

As their lips part, he looks down at her as he bumps her nose with his. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” And she would gladly shout it from the rooftops right now if he wanted her to. Instead, together they position his cock at her entrance, the blunt head parting her lips. They exchange one final peck before he pushes in, slowly inching his way inside of her. She throws her head back and moans, the pressure like nothing she’s ever experienced before, that feeling of him being a part of her something she can’t even begin to describe. 

It doesn’t hurt, not the way she’d always been warned it would, by her septa and her mother, who cautioned her about the possible perils of a marriage bed. No, it’s more like the burning of muscles long unused, the kind that feels good so long as you stretch properly beforehand and practice regularly. Internally, she laughs at the face her septa would make if she could see her now, because fucking her husband is one thing she’ll never have to be coerced into practicing.

Once he’s fully within her, his sweaty head falls into her neck, his breathing heavier than after a long day in the forge. Running a hand through his hair, she adjusts her hips, trying to find an angle she likes even better, letting his groans help guide her. She wraps both legs around his waist, somehow bringing them even closer, the way his pubic bone rubs against her clit astonishingly good.

Gendry pushes up on his hands, and keeping his eyes firmly on hers, pulls out almost halfway before sinking back in, a little faster and a little harder. The surprised _oh_ that escapes her spurs him on, and he repeats the action, each time incrementally longer and harder than the last, until he is thrusting hard enough that she would worry about falling off the bed if they weren’t so tangled up in each other.

Soon he leans down and rests on a single arm as he kisses her mouth thoroughly, the other hand reaching down to massage her clit. With every thrust, another climax seems more possible, her nails probably scoring lines down his back, though he doesn’t seem to mind one jot at the moment.

He breaks away, head falling to the bed beside her ear. “I’m not going to last,” he gasps, tone as apologetic as it is tense.

“Then let go.” She’d already gotten hers, so instead of trying to reach it again, she coaxes him into his own, using her body to make each stroke into her seem to last forever as she ruts against him. Gendry comes with a shout of her name, then pulls her into a wet and messy kiss. After he manages to recapture some semblance of normal brain function, he pulls out and rolls off of her, though he doesn’t go far.

They lie facing one another, noses almost touching. Arya sees him fixated on her face, looking like he’s trying to study every little detail. Perfectly happy to stare at him in return, she traces shapes along the muscled lines of his chest, playing with his nipples and swirling in the light smattering of hair that leads to his groin.

The arm around her waist scoots her closer on the bed, so close she has to throw a leg over his hip for purely comfort’s sake. A filthy smirk crosses his lips at the gesture, his hand wandering down to squeeze her arse. Rolling her eyes, because she absolutely is too sore to go again, she kisses him lightly before tucking herself more comfortably into the crook of his neck. “What were you staring at?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, it’s just that I’ve missed your eyes,” he answers. His fingers come up to brush the hair out of her face so he can see them again, and she in turn can see all the love shining in eyes as deep and blue as the sea.

“I’ve missed yours too.” Arya Stark smiles as she falls asleep in her husband’s arms for the first time, safe in the knowledge that she has married the love of her life. He in turn holds her close, nose buried in her hair as he dreams of future children looking up at him with coal black hair and curious gray eyes.

In the skies high above Braavos, the swooping wings of dragons circle the evening clouds as their mother scans for a place to land her ships.


End file.
